Archive for January 2008
A Five-Alarm Disaster
Just when we thought no more fuel could be added to the already roaring childhood overweight and obesity fire, two research reports published in the December 6 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine have stepped up the call to action to a new level of urgency.
While we know that being overweight or having a high body mass index (BMI) is unhealthy for kids, the two studie…
Moira and Lindsay G. Merrithew
“We didn’t get into this because we thought Pilates would be a big business,” remembers Moira Merrithew, executive director of education for STOTT PILATES, who co-founded the company with her husband, Lindsay G. Merrithew, president and chief executive officer. “In 1988, we were at the right place at the right time. When we started, Pilates was very much a cottage industry. Our goal was simple—…
Read MoreHeart Disease and Women
Did you know that heart disease is the leading killer of females in America? Not only does heart disease kill more women than men each year, but females who survive a cardiac event fare much worse than their male counterparts. Yet many women fail to recognize the toll that cardiovascular disease (CVD) can take on their bodies, and thus fail to do what is necessary to reduce the risk of getting …
Read MoreStay Seated!
The cool-down is as important as the highest hill we climb, the most challenging interval we push through and the hardest flat we race. However, to many participants the cool-down is a waste of time and a cue that class is over. Their hearts aren’t pounding, their legs aren’t burning—nothing is happening, right? Wrong! The time spent transitioning out of hard work zones and into easy breathing …
Read MoreCould You Be a Cybertrainer?
If you’re considering expanding your services into cyberspace or adding to your current online offerings, now’s the time. On an average day, 113 million adults look for health information online. More than 57% of Americans watch or download videos from the Internet, and 12% of Internet users have downloaded audio files known as podcasts. Prospective clients are virtually everywhere! Given that …
Read MoreSample Class: Athletic Boot Camp
Boot camp classes are a great way to add variety, style and intensity to your schedule. Members love this format; they can work at their own pace without feeling that they are out of step with the music or other participants. Classes are easy and fun to teach, and you don’t need a lot of equipment. And almost all the exercises are modifiable, so you can increase or decrease the challenge …
Read MoreA Balancing Act
Yoga 360, created by IDEA member Desiree Bartlett, MS, uses a special circular yoga mat (called the 360 Degree Mat) that "optimizes feminine energy." The 75-minute multidimensional movement class is "full of arcs, ellipses and spirals." "Fluid sequencing allows for greater freedom in movement and is inspired by yoga and dance, while the shape of the mat…
Read MoreDo Negative Beliefs Sabotage Your Clients?
As a wellness professional, you know how satisfying it is …
Read MoreShort-Term Meditation Offers Benefits
One of the barriers to consistent meditation practice is that people feel they do not have enough time. A small study conducted in China has shown that meditating as little as 20 minutes daily over a 5-day period can improve both attention and mood.
Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) combines a number of traditional Chinese-medicine techniques, including body relaxation, bre…
Read MoreA Dash of Cinnamon
Did you know that just a dash of cinnamon a day can spice up your health status? Studies of patients with type 2 diabetes found that cinnamon lowers fasting LDL and total-cholesterol concentrations in the bloodstream and may aid in blood sugar control.
A recent study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2007; 85 [6], 1552-56) indicates that the spice may also have a pos…
Read MoreDo Low-Carb Diets Affect Exercise Fatigue?
Low-carbohydrate diets continue to be quite popular, especially among clients trying to lose weight by exercising. But can these diets actually backfire by causing frustration and earlyfatigue during an exercise session?
Researchers reporting in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association set out to determine whether low-carb diets might resul…
Read MoreThe Art of Play
As I approached the pool to teach my first water fitness class, the theme from Jaws grew progressively louder in my head. Looking through the window, I could see the “sharks” beginning to circle—these were the regular participants known for chewing up many highly skilled instructors in the past. Obviously, they were awaiting the arrival of the “new” instructor: me. I developed a lump in my thro…
Read MoreCohesive Training Courts New Instructors
As the fitness industry grows and ages, many people have noticed a gap between “veteran” instructors, who have been teaching for 10 years and longer, and “newbies,” group fitness professionals who are just getting started. This has led many to voice concerns over the future of group exercise. To address this issue, IDEA Fitness Journal began running a new column in January, highl…
Read MoreHigh-School PE Class Revisited
Remember when you were in high school and your physical education (PE) teachers—intimidating in their gray, cotton sweats, wielding whistles—made you do push-ups, chin-ups and sit-ups? What about those long-forgotten Presidential Physical Fitness Tests, which required you to run different distances for time? Whatever happened to those “old-fashioned” exercises? While free weights and mac…
Read MoreThe Skinny on Losing Weight and Keeping It Off
Despite years of talk about the obesity epidemic and the emergence of countless government programs and weight loss crusades, only a select few people manage to lose significant amounts of weight and maintain that weight loss. At any given time, approximately 40% of women and 25% of men in the U.S. are trying to lose weight (Kruger et al. 2004). Sadly, most of their efforts will go unrewarded, …
Read MoreHow Do You Deal With Competition?
There is always competition. Look at Coke and Pepsi, Verizon and Sprint, Apple and IBM or Adidas and Nike, for example. Whether I was pursuing my master’s in exercise physiology, going for my ACE or ACSM certifications, attending an IDEA conference or even hiring my staff of personal trainers, the people I was interacting with were not only my contemporaries but also my c…
Read MoreAssessing the Lactate Threshold
McGehee, J.C., Tanner, C.J., & Houmard, J.A. 2005. A comparison of methods for estimating the lactate threshold. Journal
of Strength and Conditioning Research,
19 (3), 553–58.
Lactate threshold (LT) is the point in exercise intensity at which blood lactate concentrations rise exponentially. LT has been identified in research as the bes…
The Transformational Twosome
Subjects: Dawn and Tom Terwilliger
Company: Terwilliger Fitness
A Winning Partnership. Years ago as Tom Terwilliger prepared to shoot an episode of Muscle Sport USA for Fox Sports Net in Boulder, Colorado, he probably wasn’t aware that his life was about to take a dramatic turn. In his home state of New York, Ter…
The Mentor Connection
When I began my journey as a personal fitness trainer (PFT), I was clueless about what to do first. Though I’d successfully completed my exam, I quickly realized there was a lot more to this career than understanding anatomy and knowing how to execute a squat. I started to feel as though I was casting about in the dark, as there was so much I still needed to learn before I could feel comf…
Read MoreAn Eye on Nutrition
When faces become blurry, road signs get fuzzy and the fine print on a food label appears illegible, your eyes are telling you something: a visit to an eye care professional is in order. From birth, our eyes are constantly filtering light—from harsh sunlight to the more damaging blue light—and over time the effects can be damaging. Just like the skin, our eyes need sunscreen. The good news is y…
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