The fun and fitness that is Wii fitness has no comparison, after a year or so I am still having fun with this thing. After running around the living room for half an hour, impersonating a tree, punching the air and whacking invisible tennis balls, any casual observer could be forgiven for thinking you might be a little off-the-wall.

But the Wii has revolutionized gaming. The main difference is that you experience it, you don’t just sit there and play! It is not like the old style of gaming where the only body part that moves was your thumbs. Oh no. The Wii is the perfect solution for those with sloth-like tendencies because it blends socializing with doing exercise that is actually fun! Playing the Wii involves stretching, balancing, an increased heart rate and getting very hot! Cast aside stereotypes of gaming being mainly a male (usually young male) pastime. Using the Wii can involve the whole family with friends thrown into the mix too. Put simply, it’s for everyone.

Currently, the Nintendo Wii games console has reached worldwide sales of 50 million units. The president Satoru Iwata expressed recently that it was “more than they could have possibly hoped for.” Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: casual observer, coach, Liverpool John Moores University, Nintendo, president, Satoru Iwata, Tennis, the British Medical Journal, United Kingdom

We have all watched as Michael Phelps has seemed for the last week to be completely unbeatable in a crowded sport, swimming, that has a low barrier of entry for people and is very very competitive. Michael Phelps ended up winning all of his eight events with records in seven of them. This after winning six Gold medals in the Athens Olympics four years ago.

I heard a little bit of an interview with Micheal Phelps yesterday and someone asked him how he could break all the swimming records and if his records will ever be broken. He said:

“Everything is possible if you dream. My coach helped me to dream big. When I got to him he said to me that I should dream big. He told me to dream as big as you can.”

Five hours of training a day and an attitude that he would win, noth that he hoped that he would win but he dremed big that he would win his Olympic gold medals.

Tags: coach, michael phelps, Micheal Phelps, Olympic, olympic gold medals, olympics, Swimming, swimming records, the Athens Olympics

Biggest Loser coach Bob Harper is great. I just read a great little story about hiw roots and history before he was a coach and trainer on the Biggest Loser. The Globe and Mail newspaper has the story.

Apparently Bob Harper has a new book out, called “Are you ready!” and he may be plugging the book a bit so I am hoping that we will be seeing a few more interesting interviews and insights.

Watch around and see if you can see more Bob Harper sightings in the news and I am sure soon enough we will start seeing commercials on TV for the next season of the Biggest Loser.

Tags: bob harper, Bob Harper Biggest Loser, coach, Globe and Mail, The Globe and Mail, the Biggest Loser

The new season, season 4 of Biggest Loser is now underway. I am again excited at the prospect of a new season and glad that they did away with and introduced some changes to the format of the Biggest Loser.

Of course the big change was to bring back Jillian Michaels as the trainer and coach of the new Black team, a team that the main group knows nothing about. Jillian has a bit of an edge in that she is playing on the emotions of her team as the castoffs that were not chosen while the other teams duke it out at the new non-ranch location.

Another change this season is the integration of the teams with the trainers. Bob Harper and Kim Lyons were both in the room for both the initial and second weigh ins and you could see their excitement and disappointment when members lost more or less than they had hoped.

Finally the Biggest Loser changed the format in that they do not have a few people on and kick off most of the people to workout at home by themselves, I did not like this last season and made it quite clear a few times in previous posts.

So now finally on to the show – the first of two two hour episodes with next week being two hours as well.

The Biggest Loser season 4 started with an almost 15 minute preview of this coming season, I guess this was OK even though it felt a bit like a commercial but the thing is that over the first few weeks we do not have a chance to get to know the people on the show very well and that is really to me what the show is all about.

The show starts with 18 people racing to Bob Harper and Kim Lyons with the two winners picking a team of 6 and having 6 people sent home, waving as the two team busses leave….or so they think, in rides Jillian Michaels to secretly take this team of 6 outcasts to become her new black team that will not show up in the game until after the second week.

More…

So the teams are now set, Bob Harper is working with the Blue team, Kim Lyons is working with the Red team and Jillian Michaels is working with the Black team. All the teams have six members and at this point seem pretty evenly matched as far as we could see.

The challenge this week was to load all of the weight that the teams want to lose individually into a private jet and then push and pull the jet across a finish line. Impressive to say the least with the red team winning the challenge and getting to read letters for home. Both my wife and I thought it was a little early for the letters at home type of reward, when did they see their families last? Last week? Anyway they could have waited 4 or 5 weeks for that one I thought.

Jillians black team is still working away in secret…

Finally in the weigh in the Blue team won. At the end of the weight in the captain of the Blue team, 62 year old Phil (an IT Project Manager) had to lose more than 5 pounds for his team to win and ended up losing 31 pounds.

So the Red team had to kick off one of their own, Amber, who tried to give up early seemed almost relieved to be kicked out of the game. I think that sometimes people are excited about being on a reality show and when they actually get there have trouble with the pain and interpersonal relationships that they had not really though through.

That’s it, the first episode of the Biggest Loser Season 4 is over but I am going to add some posts this week about the tips from the show as well as the people and what they seemed like.

Tags: biggest_loser, bob harper, bob_harper, Captain, coach, IT Project Manager, jillian michaels, jillian_michaels, kim lyons, kim_lyons, pain, Phil

Everyone wants better abs and here is a bunch of great info on getting better abs now. I have just got this interview that Tom Venuto of Burn the fat feed the muscle fame, did with David Grisaffi. David Grisaffi has just created a kick ass workout system called flatten your abs that is designed to give you much better abs and I thought I would share this with you now to learn more about ab training.

The Abdominal Training Secrets Interview
With Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com
And David Grisaffi, CHEK, CFT, PN
www.FlattenYourAbs.net

TV: Hi David, thanks for taking the time for this interview because I know how busy you are and that, among other projects, you run a training studio in Tacoma, you’re a wrestling coach and you keep a full client load. I’ve known you for a couple years now through the Internet and the emails we’ve sent to each other and you’re very well known within the fitness industry – especially in the sports training field. But on the off chance that some of the people listening to this interview don’t know who you are, would you give us a quick introduction and tell us little bit about your background, how you got started in this field and how you spend your time now?

DG: Well I was always a sports enthusiast my entire life. I can remember I was the only 9-year-old watching Monday night football and taking stats. I did all the usual sports – football, soccer, wrestling, swimming, baseball and tennis. Never did much with basketball. Being a genetically “blessed” Italian, I didn’t think the height requirement was going to be on my side. I excelled at wrestling. That sport alone taught me about nutrition, supplements, work ethic etc. I really have to thank wrestling for getting me into this field. I now coach high school wrestling, baseball and youth football. I keep really busy with my 3 children, Addision (13) Garrison (10) and my little man Carson (7). I taught school for a couple of years and then decided to go into personal training.

TV: You have quite a few certifications, one of them is certified personal trainer, one is certified golf trainer  or golf biomechanic to be exact – but what is a Corrective High Performance Exercise Kinesiologist?

DG: That’s an intense certification program where you learn from one of the foremost experts in the conditioning field, Paul Chek, who personally developed and cultivated the program. The certification revolves around the dynamics of kinesiology, physiology, functional anatomy and mind  body – spirit relationships. The program has four levels and I’m currently a level II, where we learn physical assessment, posture analysis, gait analysis, primal movement patterns, length-tension testing and range of motion testing. My Golf biomechanic certification is also from the CHEK institute. This is where we learn how the relationship between muscles and muscle groups affect the golf swing and how to improve it. In the winter of 2002 I also became one of the first Nutrition and Lifestyle Coaches from the CHEK institute. This program was developed to help practitioners deal with nutritional and lifestyle needs of their clients. The certification teaches how symptoms of disease and stress can be prevented through diet, exercise and stress management. I’m currently a level II Nutrition and lifestyle coach.I can’t say enough about how Paul has helped me become a better trainer and person. There is more to this than just exercise.

TV: And I understand that there’s only a small handful of people who have those credentials, is that right?

DG: Yes, I think, at last count about 1000 have received a CHEK certification but there are only about 35 in the world with all three certifications including the level two’s. So it all costs time, energy and brain work Tom, but for someone who wants something different and out of the box thinking, it’s great. Not to take away from any other certification programs; heck, I love the ISSA, Ian King, Charles Poliquin and many others

TV: That’s impressive, congratulations. So if I understand your philosophy correctly, the big difference between you and other trainers and especially trainers who only do bodybuilding and nothing else, is that you help your clients not only look good, but also with functionality, performance and correcting existing injuries or potential problem areas or imbalances that could lead to injuries in the future. Did I miss anything or would you say that’s a pretty good description?

DG: That’s right you have to evaluate your client thoroughly for strengths and weaknesses to get the best results. Sometimes without a good evaluation you can miss something that could help prevent or fix an injury or cause someone not to excel.

TV:I think it’s really important what you’re teaching people because as a bodybuilder myself, when I first started many years ago, the ONLY thing I cared about was looking good and having muscles and abs and low body fat, but true fitness is a lot more than just looking good. For one thing it’s health above all else. In addition to that, if you don’t have strong, flexible and balanced development, then sooner or later, you’re going to get injured or you’re going to find that you can’t enjoy the sports or recreation activities you want to, and ultimately you might even find yourself restricted from normal daily activities like squatting, bending and lifting things around the house, which is exactly what happens to most people when then get older. But still, the fact is, everyone wants to look good, they want the six pack; they want muscle definition. So how do you balance the form aspect  the looking good part  with the function aspect  which is the strength, flexibility, balance and performance part?

DG: I believe we develop from the inside out. If you have good insides, you will have a good outside. What I mean is that diet, nutrition and water intake have a great deal to do with how good you look on the outside. So to look good – the form part – I start with overseeing my client’s dietary intake. I don’t go as far as telling them exactly what to eat, but I give a lot of suggestions. As for the function, I always think of the body as a whole, not as parts. Yes, if you’re a bodybuilder and that is your gig, then heck yes, think in parts. This really depends on the client and their goals, but you always need proper flexibility, strength and balance in the whole body as a unit.

TV: You train regular people and you also train professional athletes, especially boxers and golfers. Is there a big difference in how athletes and regular people should train?

DG: Each of them has distinct differences. So to plop down a canned program for everyone would lead to failure and would reflect poorly on me. I take each client one at a time. In my Flatten Your Abs e-book, I provide many different levels so each individual can pick the level that fits them best when they start out. Everyone is not equal. The boxers in general, are more athletic, so one big difference is that I change their program more often to keep them fresh. Let’s say I have 6 weeks before a tough fight, I may change the workout 3 – 4 times. Their nervous systems are highly adaptable and need the change. Someone who just wants to start a basic weight-training program could stay on the same program for the entire 6 weeks and get results. This is because their nervous systems are not as highly developed.

Read the rest of this interview on my next Ab workout interview post!

Click here to visit David Grisaffi.s Flatten Your Abs Website to see what this great program has to offer you this year.

Tags: Addision, baseball, basketball, Carson, Charles Poliquin, coach, David Grisaffi, David Grisaffi.s Flatten, e-book, energy, existing injuries, football, Golf, Ian King, King, nervous systems, Paul Chek, personal trainer, soccer, sports enthusiast, sports training field, Swimming, Tennis, tom venuto, usual sports, wrestling, wrestling coach, www.burnthefat.com, www.flattenyourabs.net

We all know that many people fail on their diets and often wonder why. Well there is a number of factors that affect whether a diet will work or will not. I thought I would pull some info from a KLTV article from today and will paraphrase the details.

About one in three American adults is trying to lose weight at any given time, and while their track record for trying is good, their track record for succeeding is not.

Within five years, most dieters will regain the weight they lost. And, after five years, they may even weigh more than when they started the original weight-loss effort, some studies have found.

But weight-loss researchers have begun to uncover insights into what makes some dieters succeed while others fail. While there are no hard-and-fast rules that work for everyone, there are ways to maximize your success the next time you decide to drop those excess pounds — maybe for good.

A strategy for success begins with getting realistic, experts say.

Unrealistic Goals
“Cause number-one [for failure] is setting too unrealistic of goals, losing too much too fast,” said Barbel Knauper, an associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. Instead of trying to lose, say, 15 pounds in a month — very unrealistic — most experts suggest a slow, steady loss, about one or two pounds a week.

Bad eating planning
Another pitfall, Knauper said, is a lack of advance planning before social situations. “If people were making ‘when, where, how’ plans, they would be more likely to adhere to their goal,” he said. For instance, you might say to yourself, ‘When I go out for dinner tonight with friends, I won’t order a large entree, but a smaller one. And I’ll stick with my choice even if they pressure me to eat more.’”

Socializing is one of the top three reasons people eventually fail with a diet, said Dr. Michael Dansinger, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center, in Boston.

Feeling deprived of certain foods
The other two? “Feelings of deprivation or boredom with the current eating plan,” Dansinger said, “and the healthy foods often seem to be less available, require more preparation or cost more than the unhealthy foods.”

Portion size and the effect of exercise
Still another pitfall, Knauper said, is that people often underestimate the number of calories in foods and overestimate the number of calories burned through exercise.

In one study, Knauper asked 132 women trying to lose weight on their own to tell him their strategies — their dieting “rules,” so to speak. In all, the 132 dieters offered 895 rules, with each woman listing an average of nearly seven.

Then his research team followed the women to see which rules worked. Overall, adherence to the self-set rules was low. But the ones deemed most effective were the simplest — reducing calories and increasing exercise. Other rules that worked included: decreasing sugar intake; increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables, vitamins and water; watching less TV; and eating at home more often.

If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to diet many times, Dansinger suggests getting a “coach.” A coach can be your doctor, another health professional, or a friend who’ll hold you accountable to your goals, he said. He also suggests recording your intake of calories every day, limiting calories, and exercising seven hours a week, including cardiovascular and weight workouts.

In a 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dansinger also found that adherence to a weight-loss plan — any plan — is more important than the diet regimen itself. He compared people on Weight Watchers, Atkins, Zone and Ornish diets and found no substantial weight-loss differences at one year, regardless of the diet. The amount of weight lost ranged from 4.6 to 7.3 pounds.

So what can we learn from this study? Well I believe that it is most important to look sometimes at your weight loss plan as a bit of a high wire act where you always need to be loose and able to move one way or another but at the same time focused on whee you are and where you are going. Although most diets fail there is no way to fail if you change your lifestyle and attitude about food and exercise.

Tags: American Medical Association, associate professor, associate professor of psychology, Barbel Knauper, Boston, coach, Dansinger, food, KLTV, McGill University in Montreal, Michael Dansinger, Montreal, professor of medicine, professor of psychology, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Tufts-New England Medical Center

On the eve of the newest season of the Biggest Loser my wife just found a story on the People magazine website that apparently Matt and Suzy from last seasons Biggest Loser just got married this past weekend. Last season I did not remember these guys being together although they were very supportive during the final few months while working out at home and in the studio for the finale.

According to People Magazine:

At the wedding the bride wore a white beach wedding dress by Renée Strauss featuring a sash and a Tacori crystal broach. She also wore her grandmother’s diamond stud earrings and diamond pendant necklace. Hoover dressed in khaki linen pants with a white buttoned-up shirt rolled at the sleeves. Both the bride and groom went barefoot to the ceremony.

The couple, who are both 30, called the wedding’s tropical location “beautiful.” They will also spend their honeymoon in Jamaica. For their reception, instead of a cake, the pair planned to serve homemade cupcakes baked by the bride and a friend.

Matt Hoover, a former wrestling coach from Iowa, popped the question to Seattle-based Suzy Preston, a hairstylist, live on the Today show in March – while both were in their workout gear. (Preston thought they were there for a fitness segment.)

Dropping to his knee in New York City’s Rockefeller Center plaza, Hoover said, “I have gone through a lot of changes in the past year. … I want to keep changing, but I want you to be by my side.”

Taking a ring from Kraiko Diamonds out of his pocket, Matt Hoover continued, “I had this made for you.” Then he told a teary Suzy Preston, “I’d like to ask you to be my wife!”

Suzy Preston answered with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

What a nice story. I am sure that as these two said they have seen each other at their worst and I still remember the two of them last season.

Matt Hoover was really guarded and had problems in his life fighting with the fact that he was a competitive wrestler just a few years ago and let his body go. He wanted to do everything himself and although you felt for him you really wanted to scream at him to lean on everyone else to help support him. Matt ended up winning last season but just barely as he was competing with Suzy Preston who to my wife and I seemed a bit like a whining wimp in the first place. One we got to know Suzy’s character though we did start cheering for her and in the end we cheered for her to win against Matt and Seth..

Tags: coach, competitive wrestler, Dropping, Hoover, Iowa, Jamaica, Matt, Matt Hoover, New York City, Rockefeller Center plaza, Seattle, Suzy Preston, the People, wrestling, wrestling coach

I recieve a monthly newsletter from Tom Venuto, the famous fitness book writer that wrote Burn the Fat Feed The Muscle (link to the review I did a little while ago of the book). He had a great question and answer that I wanted to share about The Caveman Diet, a diet that I myself had never heard of.

QUESTION:

Hi Tom,

Your Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook was an eye-opener for me. I am
following your advice closely with very good results. I’m a semi professional
windsurfer and a mountain biker, and especially for the latter I need to
be as lean as possible. Thanks in large part to your program, I’m well into
a single digit body fat and dropping.

Just recently I came across a book called the paleolithic diet and I was
wondering if you ever heard about it? What’s your opinion on this book? Is
it worth reading if I already have your book? Is the program any good?

Regards,

Mariusz G.
Poland
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Amazon.com, chemicals, coach, Coca-Cola, Conditioning Specialist Fat Loss Coach, CSCS Certified Personal Trainer, dairy products, famous fitness book writer, fitness book writer, food, food intake, genetic code, grain products, high energy, high energy expenditure, human genome, hunter, Jack Lalanne, junk food, Loren Cordain, man-made food, much disease, natural food, nature-made food, obesity, plague, processed food, Ray Audette, semi professional windsurfer, tom venuto

I have two kids and my wife and I love our kids but they can wreak havoc on a workout schedule.

Men who hit the couch instead of the gym lose about seven pounds of muscle a decade. In other words, if you don’t stay active you may soon look like that guy at work who hasn’t seen his toes in 20 years.But with work and raising a family, finding time to log those miles and rack up those reps can seem impossible. Here are some tips on how you can fit an excellent workout into your hectic lifestyle:

Remember: Less Is More…. Or At Least Enough.
It used to be that you’d have to spend hours a week at the gym to get a buff bod. The good news is studies show you can get nearly the same results with a third of the work.

“If you’re training to increase your health and to optimize your fitness, you certainly can have a very focused workout that makes the most of your time,” said Richard Cotton, chief exercise physiologist with First Fitness Inc. in Salt Lake City.

So say goodbye to those multiple sets of arduous pumping, and instead choose just ten exercises, and do one set of ten reps each. Devote a full minute to each set, concentrating on the major muscle groups, and in ten minutes you’re pumped.

Gain With Less Pain.
Not only can you reduce your number of sets, you can cut your weekly workouts from three to two, said Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass. Men who workout twice a week using the above regimen get 85 percent of the benefit as men who hit the iron three times weekly, shedding fat and packing on the muscle as they do it, he said.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Avon, chief exercise physiologist, coach, David Goodwin, director at the South Shore YMCA, First Fitness Inc., fitness research director, football, Glenn Gaesser, home fitness equipment, Less Is More, Massachusetts, owner, pain, Phoenix Academy, professor of exercise physiology, Quincy, Richard Cotton, Salt Lake City, stair climber, University of Virginia, USD, Virginia, Wayne Westcott, www.trazer.com

Well this week the contestents were in Las Vegas and got ot play a card for money and lose their Coach if they did so. Out of 10 people 5 took the money. In the end all of the people lost quite a bit of weight so apparently the muscle is starting to pack on an the cardio is definitely working.

The trainers both were horrified when they found out that 5 people took $1,000 to $5,000 to not have a trainer for a week, you have to agree with them as getting kicked out early may stop your weight loss in it’s tracks and having all time access to a trainer is a once in a lifetime experience.

For drama the women were fighting and not working as a team while the men were working really hard, together and as a team.

Tags: coach, Las Vegas, USD, Week