May 14

DIY Home Workouts!

Napa’s local gyms offer benefits to many of the town’s inhabitants.  Synergy, Health Quest, and INSHAPE offer small group fitness classes at various times throughout the day.  These classes are led by certified fitness professionals that guide participants through a unique array of exercises including high intensity interval training (HIIT), Yoga, and step aerobics.  These planned out sessions give the participants something to look forward to when they make their way to the gym.  The chemistry alone with a specific fitness instructor can be enough to motivate people to get some much-needed exercise.  Additionally, attending scheduled classes have a great social aspect to them.  It’s a blast to be able to listen to upbeat music and workout next to someone you relate to.  The weekly schedule of classes also gives exercise participant the ability to plan when they are going to exercise.  These local gyms also have a variety of equipment available for participants to utilize.  Access to the state-of-the-art weight machines and cardio equipment are a great way to support the community in improving their strength and cardiovascular health.  Pools and hot tubs that are properly maintained and can be utilized for exercise.  Aquatic fitness is beneficial for individuals suffering from previous injuries or conditions that might limit them from going to a class or the weight room.  Unfortunately, not everyone in Napa has a pool to perform an aquatic fitness routine.  With a pool readily available at one of these local Napa gyms, aquatic fitness is accessible.

The features a local gym offers is beneficial to participants frequently attending the gym.  However, what happens when you can’t get to the gym?  A long 9 to 10-hour day at work makes that drive across town and the masses of people at the busy hour of the gym a daunting task.  Perhaps the idea of interacting with people just isn’t in the cards. These circumstances create an aversion toward attending the gym.  When we can’t go to the gym, exercise can hit the back burner.  How can we fit exercise in when attending the local gym is out of the question?

We hear this issue quite often with our Napa personal training clients.  A solution we teach our clients is the ability to create at home workouts that can done in their house.  After a few sessions of learning proper form and how to properly perform exercises in the correct order, our personal training clients can create a DIY fitness homework routine.

In order to create an efficient and effective DIY fitness homework routine, we ensure that our personal training clients include 3 critically important components into their fitness homework routine:  flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular modes of exercise.  Here are some examples of techniques that can be done at home with little to no equipment within the 3 main categories:

  1. Flexibility Incorporating a dynamic stretching routine is a great way to start any workout. Movements such as crossing the arms across the chest, hoopla hoop hip movements, and leg swings to accentuate a stretch in the shoulders and hips are a great way to get blood flow to working muscles, improve maximum range of motion and produce synovial fluid to lubricate joints.  This a great injury prevention technique that not only helps improve flexibility, but also improves balance. Include active stretching, balancing techniques, and coordination exercises in this section.
  2. Strength: Some of the easiest body weight exercises to do at home are squat, push up, and plank movements.  For the squat, you can use a chair to settle your weight on and then squat up.  Or you can perform the traditional squat with out a chair to spot you.  Any push up or plank movement can be applied to various fitness levels.  If you’re just starting out, perform your pushups and planks from the wall.  When you have developed mastery and competency of the push up from the wall, perhaps you can move to a counter top, or even the ground with your legs extended for a real challenge.
  3. Cardiovascular: Anything form performing a jumping jack to hiking up and down a set of stairs for 5-10 minutes is a deceptively effective way to achieve a heart rate response.  Simple techniques such as these can create beneficial adaptations to anyone’s cardiovascular system and assist in preventing cardiovascular diseases.

To promote DIY fitness homework programs, we ensure that our personal training clients have body weight exercise knowledge in their back pocket.  Being able to perform fitness homework on the fly is an invaluable technique to aid people in maintaining their life time fitness. We never want to miss a workout.  With the ability to create a DIY fitness homework routine, we can ensure that we adhere to our much need 3 days of exercise per week.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Apr 23

Warming Up Will Decrease Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

Exercise assists the functionality of our bodies in our lives.  Examples include being able to pick up heavier objects, giving us the ability to help our friends move things, or improving our balance.  Regular exercise also helps to decrease the likelihood of injury such as strengthening ankle joints to avoid rolled ankles or improving back posture to avoid neck and back pain.  An active exercise routine helps avoid the threat of becoming overweight, developing metabolic disease such as diabetes, or contracting cardiovascular disease.  However, along with regular exercise comes another uncomfortable component.  The feeling of soreness and tightness a day or two after completing an effective bout of exercise, more commonly known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).

The feeling of DOMS can cause dull aches and pains.  Intense cases of DOMS following a workout can impede the functions of everyday life.  When we receive a feeling of soreness that makes us worse than before we worked out, it defeats the purpose of regular exercise all together.  We have seen people deviate away from exercise because of the fear of being so sore they can’t function in the daily activities they enjoy.  This is not what we want from regular exercise.  Fortunately, the prolonged effect of DOMS is curable with a few mindful techniques added into your exercise routine.

Our personal training clients in Napa approach us with similar inquiries.  A common question we here from our Napa gym goers is, “How can I make my soreness not last as long?”  Some of the best ways to counteraction the deleterious effects of DOMS is a balanced diet, structured exercise routine, and plenty of rest. However, before we venture into these factors to manage DOMS, we ensure to ask a question about the lower hanging fruit of success that is commonly overlooked by most exercise participants in their current exercise routine: “Are you warming up?”

We include a portion in our Napa personal training clients exercise prescription called “movement prep.”, which is a fancy term for “longer warm up.”   Our newer personal training clients say, “Yes, I warm up.  I take a jog on the treadmill or spend a few minutes on the elliptical.” Or “I might do some jumping jacks or something.”  While these techniques are better than just traveling to a local Napa gym and using the weight room machines unprepared, there are still critically important movements that are necessary to any warm up routines that need to be addressed.  With a proper warm up, the time that DOMS is experienced will significantly decrease.

During our movement prep. routines, we execute with our Napa personal training clients; we ensure to perform a series of dynamic stretching movements.  This dynamic stretching routine activates the muscles of the neck, shoulder, core and lower extremities.  Performing a series of movements in commonly used areas of the body innervate and engage muscles, priming them for exercise.  In addition to a dynamic stretching routine included in the movement prep., we also ensure to add isometric exercises, such as the simple plank, to engage the musculature of the core and increase blood flow to the center of the body’s working muscles.  The more blood flow we have to the working muscles, the muscle will perform optimally and will be less likely to overstress from a workout that will lead to extreme muscle soreness.  Similar to warming up the muscles of the core of the body, it’s equally important to warm up the muscles that cover the other main motors of the body including simple squatting movements, pushups, or dying bugs (a core exercise in which you lay on your back).

Performing a movement prep. routine as part of a warm up will prime the body for the impending workout session and decrease the intensity of DOMS following a bout of exercise.  Additionally, left over DOMS from a previous exercise session will diminish after this movement prep. routine has been completed before the next session of exercise.  Regular movement prep. decreases the intensity of future DOMS experiences because this regular routine of priming the body for exercise will eventually ingrain that a body in motion, stays in motion.  We can’t just enter physical activity in an unprepared state.

We notice that our Napa personal training clients achieve better results by practicing movement prep. before their exercise routines.  They explain to us that their bodies aren’t wrecked after the effective exercise prescriptions we guide them through each training session.  Let’s be mindful of how we are preparing our bodies for exercise and keep them moving by implementing a proper movement prep. routine to decrease muscle soreness.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Apr 11

Stretching for Injuries: Solutions for Napa Gym Participants

Injuries are no fun.  They occur from unexpected moments and can put us on the sideline of activities we enjoy.  Many of our personal training clients in Napa seek out our guidance on how to efficiently recover from a muscular or joint injury so they can return to their normal extracurricular physical activities.  A common question that gets asked is if injuries should be stretched or not.  Just like many things in the world of exercise physiology and the rehab of the body from injuries that affect the joints and connective tissue in our body, there are many factors that we need to assess before making the decisions to stretch or not.  Stretching an injury could lead to hasty recover to an injury or cause the injury to heal less efficiently.

One of the first things we ask personal training clients in Napa before making recommendations on a good rehabilitative plan to recover an injury is, “how did the mechanism of injury occur?”  Was it a twist?  A sprain?  An over stretched muscle?  A percussion injury in which the victim ran into something, fell on something, or was hit by an object? These are critical data points that offer evidence on where to start a point of rehab that will lead to returning the injured site of the body to optimal working conditions.

Let’s look at the idea of stretching a muscle.  If a muscle is bound up from a cramp or muscle tightness to where extending a limb is challenging, then stretching to increase range of motion could be a beneficial outcome.  However, if the mechanism of injury occurs from an overstretched muscle group, then stretching to rehabilitate an already overstretched muscle could result in diminishing returns.  Why would we want to stretch a site of injury that has already been damaged by stretching past its normal parameters?  When connective tissue around joints and muscles get injured from one of the above listed injuries, the tissues around the skeletal muscle, tendons and ligaments get damaged to the point to where oxygenated blood flow is delivered inefficiently.  Sub optimal blood flow to working muscle and connective tissue around joints leads to lack luster healing properties and oxygen delivery, leading to a lack of healing and performance functionality to the working muscle.  The healing process needs to be carefully managed before going into an advanced form movement to allow the damaged cells of the muscles to recover fully so oxygenated blood flow can help the injured site recover.  Injuries that are caused by torn, strained, or over-stretched events such as hamstring, groin, or abdominal tears need rest to allow the connective tissue cells that connect the muscles and bones to each completely regenerate.  It’s important to understand the severity of an injury and allow proper rest as a priority to allow regrowth of cells involved in the site of injury.

As we manage injuries with our personal training clients in Napa, one of the first noteworthy actions to note is when the injury occurred and how severe this injury was.  Was this a torn hamstring that allows for advanced therapy with a physical therapist to where the joint can’t move past a certain angle for 90 days?  Or was this a brief strain in the shoulder and neck area that might heal up in a few weeks.  The point of emphasis here is that injuries need a time line of when to allow specific movements back into an injured individuals life.  We encourage at least 30 days of rest from intense training.  We ensure to increase range of motion movements before re-admitting exercises with normal range of motion back into the program.  If we keep tabs on when the injury occurred and set a period restriction from specific movements for a prescribed time frame, the likelihood of healing can be expedited.  Most importantly, the likelihood of re-injury will be significantly lower.   Perhaps before stretching an injury, it would be a good idea to lay off stretching for a brief time frame of 2 weeks to 30 days before moving that muscle group to an increased range of motion and allow the connective tissue cells to regrow.

Understanding where a time line of recovery is critically important toward getting a musculoskeletal injury back to optimal performing conditions.  Instead of jumping right back into advanced physical activity, such as improving flexibility and range of motion of a joint, perhaps it would be a good idea to pay attention on how to allow an injury to rest and recover for a few weeks.  Simple forms of rest and recovery such as icing, utilizing a TENS unit, or applying a topical analgesic to the site of injury do not require any movement of the body and can help the damaged connective tissue cells reduce swelling to speed the rate of recovery.  Let’s remember to listen to where we are in our recovery journey during an injury.  Once we can understand how long we will be limited to an activity for, we can manage our injuries much better with the appropriate form a rehabilitation.

 

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Mar 25

Struggles with Motivation: Finding Motivation to Exercise

While playing 3 hours of Pickle Ball, one of my favorite forms of physical activity, I met a gentleman who came to scope out what the game was all about.  He had his toddler with him enjoying the beautiful weather of a bright, sun-filled Sunday late morning.  My fellow Pickle Ballers invited the gentleman to join us.  Our goal as to teach him the rules and we would recruit another person to embrace this fun form of physical activity.  Being with his toddler and no one else to watch her, he had to respectfully decline.  He mentioned  that he wanted to get back in shape.  With a toddler running around, the parents out there understand the challenge of devoting attention elsewhere.  Pair that with busy work schedules, extra time for exercise, let alone recreational activity, might be  too demanding of someone’s schedule.  As a health solutions expert, I explained to him that just doing some push ups or squats in the comfort of his own home would help him to get some exercise.  My explanation was nothing new to him.  He already knew the answer to getting back in shape.  The act of putting a few hours in every week at a gym in Napa was not a mystery.  Before I got pulled into another game by my fellow Pickle Ball friends, he explained to me, “It’s just hard to find the motivation.”

This story relates to many  individuals’ current need for exercise in their lives.  If it’s important, why isn’t the need to exercise handled with a sense of urgency?  It’s no surprise that lack of exercise and sedentary lifestyles lead to metabolic diseases, cardiovascular disease and risk increase of injury.  Sometimes, the main driver for exercise comes from doctor recommendations when an individual is already critically overweight, at the risk of type 2 Diabetes, or has severe risk factors for cardiovascular disease.  Why does exercise motivation need to wait that long?

When we start our personal training clients in Napa on a new life time fitness programs, we always ask them what their main reason for exercising is.  What’s motivating them to commit themselves to get in the best shape of their lives under our professional health and longevity coaching services?  Understanding the “right whys” are critically important factors in motivation.  Perhaps the motivation to be healthier, happier and stronger is to become a better parent.  To be able to get up and down off the floor and roll around with their toddler.  Be able to engage with their kids’ friends and coach them in tee ball.  Teaching their toddler to ride their bike for the first time and avoid  joint pain or be out of breath.  Of course, these are drivers to be a better parent and supporter of our families.  We don’t want to be out of breath all time or at risk of heart surgery when supporting a family.  But what’s stopping individuals from performing exercises that are literally right in front of us?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the equipment and setting to perform some pushups.  All you need is your self and the ground.  One of the main factors that contributes to exercise aversion is the fact that it seems like a task.  When we have time to ourselves, sometimes we just don’t want to do anymore hard work.

To help remove the idea that exercise equals work, we  ask our beginning personal training clients in Napa another critical motivational question.  What forms of physical activity are fun?  We usually get a lot of answers that relate to extracurricular activity and recreational sports.  Hiking, gardening, wood working projects, land scaping projects, water sports, mountain biking, riding bikes with the kids, adult softball, or tennis to name a few.  The gentleman that was mentioned earlier in this article was at Pickle Ball observing us because he probably thought it looked fun.  Sure, exercise is useful in preventing metabolic disease, becoming overweight and avoiding significant joint injury.  But so is getting out to play water sports, ride bikes with the kids and playing recreational sports..  An organized recreational game of tennis, softball, or shooting a few holes of golf offer increased heart rate responses.  Before you know it, participating in these forms of physical activity for a few hours will utilize a few hundred calories from fat as a fuel source.  The key point here is to find an activity that you will have fun doing to help sustain your motivation to continue being active.

When we struggle with motivation, we need to ask ourselves, “What will keep us coming back for more.”  It’s easier to stay active in an activity we enjoy than it is to go out and find one.  The critical factors of having fun, being social with others, feeling good, and just having a good time are what will help us sustain motivation and being active.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Mar 22

Take it Easy: Exercising when you’re Sick

Participating in our favorite exercise activities helps us stay in shape and have fun while we’re at it.  Getting a workout with one of our companions at the local gym, attending a group fitness class or performing a home exercise routine will improve our balance, coordination, strength and our overall mindset for the future.  While there are various benefits of regular exercise, there is an area that is overlooked when adhering to a regular exercise program.  What happens when we get sick?

Exercise induces stress on the body by way of cellular damage caused by the work we have our muscle cell and connective tissue perform throughout exercise.   Regular exercise helps improve the immune system over time, boost the metabolism by burning fat, and improves emotional and psychological wellbeing by enhancing our mood with increased dopamine coursing through our blood.  However, when the body is going through repair mode following exercise as the body is simultaneously fighting chest cold symptoms, the body works in over drive and can enter a dangerous state of distress.

As part of our life time fitness coaching efforts we offer our personal training clients in Napa, we emphasize the “less is more” principle when the body is in a state of distress.  We don’t want to be in a state of distress any longer than is necessary.  Therefore, mindful recovery and rest of the body is important when fending off illness.

When we get sick from something like a chest cold or stomach infection, a virus or bacteria enters the cells in vital organs such as the sinus, lungs, or stomach.   The cells affected by the harmful virus are damaged and go under a state of distress.  The body fights this virus by utilizing our immune system.   Similar to how the body reacts to muscle soreness following exercise and sends a signal to repair muscular damage.  The difference is that we experience the side effects of the body fighting this illness by way of mucus being distributed in our nose, throat and chest coupled with fevers and body aches.  Muscle soreness following exercise and the effects of illness are both forms of distress in the body.  During these times of distress, the body is asking for rest and recovery.  If we stack up the form of distress from exercise with the distress of illness, we can quickly over do it.  Exercising while sick can contribute to becoming even sicker than when the illness first came around.

A solution that we offer to our personal training clients in Napa is to listen to the body.  If a client tells us that they feel a cold coming on for some reason, we always err on the side of caution and inform them that the best policy is to take a day off and rest.  The last thing we want to do is to accelerate the hindered state of  body as it fends off illness.  Exercise can get us out of a funk of feeling rundown by boosting our mood and giving us more energy when minor irritations such as allergies or a runny nosed caused by cold weather have affected the body.  While there are times that exercise can help clear up the sinuses by increasing the respirations and blood flow of the exercise participant to expel excess congestion, there are some tell tale signs that you might want to take a day from training.  A strong indicator of a severe illness are body aches, fever, or a productive cough in which mucus is being expelled from the chest.  One the best ways for germs to be spread is by coughing.  When in doubt, any conditions that affect respiratory functions below the throat are usually clear signs that the body is in an advanced form of distress.  In this scenario, rest and relaxation is the best tool to get the body back to peak condition.

We want to promote a healthy lifestyle of fitness, strength and happiness.  However, by visiting the gym or your favorite group fitness activity when you’re sick, you might be spreading a bug to other gym goers around you.  For the sake of your fellow life time fitness enthusiasts, listen to your body and use your intuition.  There is a fine line between being too sick to exercise and toughing it out to ensure you are reaching your fitness goals.  However, life time fitness is a long game we play.  We want to be able to put in as much productive work as possible toward refining our fitness goals.  Sometimes taking a day off to let the body recover from sickness is the best approach we can to do get back into the gym tomorrow and chalk up another victory for our life time fitness at full power.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Mar 13

Nutrition: How much food is too much in one sitting?

The food we choose in our daily diet is a critical component to maintaining a healthy weight, staving off diseases, and optimizing the growth of lean muscle and bone strength.  A diet made up of higher concentration of plant-like foods will offer significant benefits to the functions of the body. Plant-based foods improve the immune system to fend off infections and common illnesses that cause detrimental effects to our wellbeing.   Choosing lean sources of protein that come from their most raw, denatured state will give the body an easier chance to facilitate these foods as protein for the lean muscles and connective tissue in the body to ensure a strong foundation against injuries.  Working in unison with choosing healthier food options, abstaining from processed, packaged, fat and alcohol-filled foods will support the body to not only perform efficiently, but also avoid life-threatening diseases like arteriosclerosis, arthritis and diabetes.  Practicing a balanced diet is a well-known tradition.  However, we forget about a critical facet that make a balanced diet work on all cylinders, the process of digesting your food.

Food that we eat enters a process of metabolism when it enters our gastrointestinal tract.  As the food travels through and stomach, small intestine and large intestine, the food is broken down into simple forms of proteins, carbohydrates, fats and other essential nutrients.  These substrates are transported through the body to give us energy and support our organs and connective tissue.  Each food has unique chemical properties that makes that body store fat, rebuild muscle, or support the immune system.  Food also has a unique physical structure that varies between what type of food it is.  Meats, veggies, fruits and nuts all have different textures and weights that make them break down differently when traveling through the digestive system.   When these foods are consumed in 5-7 small portion sizes throughout the day, food can be easily digested and metabolized.  However, what happens when we eat too much food in one sitting?

If we look at the digestive tract of our small intestine and large intestine, it spans about 25 feet in length.  Most research shows complete digestion of a piece of food takes about 2 to 3 days to travel through the 25-foot distance.  Now let’s compare the portion size that we eat with the amount of time it takes for a specific food product to travel through the intricate pipe system in our body to allow food to enter the intestine, metabolize the food, and then pass through the other end.  For example, compare sand passing through a funnel.  With slow, efficient distribution of sand in the funnel, sand should easily pass through the other side.  However, what happens if we were to put too much sand into the funnel?  The funnel would drain a little slower.  Additionally, sand would collect at the top of the funnel.  Take this one step further and put thicker grains of sand, or even small pebbles, into the funnel.  Now there is a possibility of clogging the funneling system and leaving product at the top of the funnel.  Things won’t move very fast.  The same thing happens to our gastrointestinal tract if we consume too much food in one sitting.  In addition, just like the example of the larger grains of sand that are harder to pass through the other end of the funnel, the structure of the food we consume can slow down our digestion as well.  However, it’s a worse for humans when food sits too long at the beginning of the GI tract and doesn’t metabolize.  The excess food has nowhere to go because of other food in the way, which means that food skips the metabolizing process of supplying the body with much needed nutrients and gets stored as fat.    As food gets caught in this limbo phase of not being digested, nutrients and substrates cannot be processed as efficiently in the small intestine.

We can help alleviate symptoms of slow digestion by becoming aware that food takes a full 3 days to metabolize and pass through the GI tract.  A steady rate of eating will ensure the digestive tract to allow food to pass through efficiently like a well operated conveyor belt.  Conveyor belts must operate not too fast, and not too slow.  Boxes that go on the conveyer belt can’t block boxes behind them that need to find their destination.  Just like boxes on conveyor belts, our portion size can’t be too big.  We coach our personal training clients in Napa to gauge a proper portion size by measuring 1 handful of a protein sours and 1 handful of a carbohydrate source in each meal.  Eating over this amount can cause a backup in the system.

Balanced diets can be applied to ensuring efficient digestion.  Make sure not to tip the scales when consuming quantities of food.  You can reference how big a proper portion size can be by imagining how much food you can fit in the palm of your hand.  In addition, ensure to be mindful of what foods you have consumed in the last 3 days.  Even though you may be eating a healthy meal, you might still have some other foods waiting in line to be metabolized.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 28

How to Address Fitness Plateaus

Weight loss, injury prevention and building full body strength are popular fitness goals Napa gym goers frequently pursue.  There are obvious benefits to our everyday lives in obtaining an optimal fitness level.  Looking and feeling better, thinking clearer, and being more productive are some of the many facets of pursing life time fitness goals that motivate people to refine their exercise routines.  However, there are times where the weight just doesn’t come off as easily as it should. Availability in the schedule isn’t always open to fit physical activity in.  Injuries, tweaks, and strains can occur and deter a gym visit for a few days.  These factors lead to potential plateaus in efforts to accomplish fitness goals.  Plateaus can be frustrating be enough to discourage someone to quit working for fitness goals indefinitely.

As personal trainers in Napa, we work with cases where exercise participants experience forms of plateauing.  We commonly hear, “Nothing’s working.  I’ve been following my ketogenic diet, eating vegan, and doing my exercise DVDs.  The weight still isn’t coming off.”  To solve this issue, we always start with the question, “What does your current fitness routine look like?”  If we plan to successfully coach someone through a plateau, we need to know what their physical activity practices look like on a weekly basis.  The usual response to the weekly exercise frequency question that unveil lack luster results commonly start with, “Well, sometimes…” or “When I have time…” or “I might fit in…”  When we hear these statements at the beginning of the answer to a layout of person who is plateauing in their fitness routine, we can identify a critical piece of the puzzle that was left out in the beginning of their fitness efforts:  lack of planning, foundation, and structure.

We deal with similar barricades that hold people back form achieving their goals.   Personal trainers specialize in solving these issues by making sure to design structured, individualized programs.  What makes our fitness coaching services a unique remedy to the plateau equation is that we have clients report to us to as much as three times per week.  We ensure exercise prescriptions are not just “some exercises” that clients “sometimes” come in for.   Our personal training clients follow a specific plan to ensure they are adhering to a weekly prescription of life time fitness techniques each week involving physical activity.  As life time fitness coaches, we meticulously track and manage variables that affect their fitness goals.  For example, we need to know how many lower body and upper body movements are executed each week.  How much recreational physical activity, such as walking, hiking, or sports are being performed throughout the week?  How much cardiovascular activity is being performed each week?  In order to identify how a fitness plateau is being caused, we need to identify how much many times a person is covering these critical factors.  Usually the plateau is occurring because people have a case of the “sometimes” when approaching fitness and shoot from the hip when randomly choosing forms of physical activity to address their fitness goals.

A solution to these common plateaus is to write down how many days you are doing your favorite top three forms of exercise.  How many times are you performing resistance training at home, a gym, or with your personal trainer per week?  How many times are you performing 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise such as going to the local gym and using the elliptical or treadmill?  How many times are you playing a recreational sport such as Bocce Ball, Pickleball, Tennis, kayaking or hiking throughout the week?  If you can create a check list on your top three favorite forms of physical activity, you can reinforce your motivation with a strong foundation of productive tactics.  Looking at this list and making efforts to complete these new found effective physical activities can integrate structure toward your goals.  With a strong foundation and structure in your game plan, plateaus in your fitness journey are less likely to occur.

When plateaus occur, we always encourage our personal training clients in Napa to take a step back and look at what they are currently doing for their fitness goals.  Avoid frustration, it’s a waste of time and energy.  We guide our personal training clients by taking that step back with them and looking at the big picture.  Surpassing fitness plateaus can be solved on your own by just taking a step back and laying out some more plans for success.  We all have the potential to live happier, stronger, and healthier lives.  We just need to lay out some plans and rigorously revise our efforts toward our life time fitness goals.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 24

Life Time Fitness “To Do” and “To Don’t” Lists!

A critical factor of sustaining success in our life time fitness is to prioritize healthy daily practices.  These healthy practices can come in the form of eating healthy, having plenty of physical activity and adhering to a positive mental outlook.  A useful technique that we teach out personal training clients in Napa is hash out the most important things in their day that should take priority regarding their health and fitness.  Then put them in a check list format.  We call this a “to do list.”  While a to do list is a crucial aspect of having a successful day, we forget about the inverse part of what makes a “to do” list successful when we check off the boxes indicating we have successfully completed our task.  The much forgot about “to don’t list.”

Our personal training clients commonly ask us, “What are some things that can be done on a daily basis to positively promote living a healthier life?”  One tactic we use is to start identifying attainable goals that have a high success rate and create a “to do” list.  Some of the easily accomplished and repeatable daily “to do’s” we start with are:

  1. Drink a tall glass of water first thing in the morning.
  2. Incorporate vegetables in at least one meal every day
  3. Get some form of physical activity every day.

Putting these tactics in a check-box format on a piece of paper will help you to knock out these tactics and positively influence living a healthier daily life.  You can even put this to do list format on your smart phone and use that as a reminder to check off these healthy habits.  To make this even more effective, combine your life time fitness “to do’s” with your other common chores you need to accomplish throughout the day, like cleaning or going to the store.

We add to our personal training client’s life time fitness success factors by implementing a “to don’t” list as well.  Learning to create success in health and wellness efforts by abstaining or avoiding errors is a commonly overlooked tactic that can yield substantial success.  This is similar to the way an elite pickleball player going up against a novice.  If the novice sticks to fundamentals of keeping the ball in the court, the “to do” part has been checked off.  If the novice ensures that the ball is not hit out of bounds, now the “to don’t” has been checked off.  There is now success on both ends of the spectrum.  The things to work to accomplish, and the things to avoid.  Now the chance for the elite player to make a mistake has been revealed, and a successful point has been revealed because the player is focusing on fundamental tactics on what “to do” and “to don’t”.  By focusing on both the “to do” and “to don’t” we can practice a refined sense of control in our decision making.

We know the need to utilize control to be able to maintain or lose a certain weight, manage stress, and be productive in our daily lives.  So, a good way to support these is to investigate what we can stay away from and create a “to don’t” check off list along with our “to do” list.  Some common “to don’t” tactics we recommend to our personal training clients are to look at the things holding them back from being productive and put a limit on them.  Some examples might include:

  1. Don’t use your cell phone after dinner time unless it’s an important phone call. Stop playing games, surfing Facebook or Instagram, or checking your emails.
  2. Don’t have treats after dinner on certain nights. Put the potato chips and chocolate away after 5 PM.
  3. Don’t have that extra glass of wine or beer after dinner.

Of course, this list is subjective for everyone, but if we interact with a “to don’t” list each day, we can avoid some of the mistakes that might affect our success in the game of life time fitness.  Making this conscious effort to create a list of things that slow you down will support optimal health and productivity throughout the day.

It’s important to identify attainable goals that can jump start your success.  Starting off with modest “to do” and “to don’t” tactics is a good idea.  That way, if you fail, it won’t be that big of a failure.  You can simply make a new one tomorrow. However, the benefit of having two lists that focus on the things you are trying to do and things you are trying to avoid doubles your chances of supporting your goals to be more productive, have clear and concise thoughts, and live a healthful and happy life.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 14

Injury Recover Prescriptions

Aches, pains, and injuries occur as we age.   We can consider ourselves diagnosed with arthritis at age 30.  Arthritic symptoms such as pain in the neck, shoulders, back, hips, knees and wrists are prevalent in our society.  Overuse injuries from poor posture in our everyday lives can affect the health of critically significant joints in our body from sitting or standing in poor form.  Some of us must live with traumatic injuries from our past lives of athletic activities or from an accident that left us with the remnants of a surgical correction causing weakness, pain, or a dysfunction in the body’s movement.  These conditions that come along with age hamper our way of living.  Everyday hobbies can be a challenge because of the thought of pain.  Recreational physical activities such as hiking, golf, or pickle ball can lose their appeal because of how the body may feel due to the pain of arthritis and the rate of recovery.  Even helping friends and family move things can be halted by weakness from the effects of previous injuries and degenerative joint symptoms.  The traumatic physical effects of life happen regularly to the general active population.  However, all these symptoms are curable with proper awareness of treating these symptoms effectively and efficiently.

Our personal training clients in Napa frequently share how their aches and pains in their body effect their lives.  Our job as life time fitness coaches is to help them live stronger, happier and mitigate symptoms of pain in their bodies.  An important factor that we need to know first is how these pains have originated.  Questions we ask our personal training clients start with, “How are you treating this pain?”  “Are you currently doing anything to help with this pain?”  And one of the most important questions, “How often are you treating these pain-like symptoms?”  As pain management coaches, we first need to know what dose of pain management are currently being taken manage pain from injuries and degenerative joint disease.

We coach our personal training clients in Napa that treating pain and injuries is the same process as taking anti-biotics to treat strep throat.  When we are diagnosed by our doctor with a case of strep throat, we are prescribed an anti-biotic to take three times a day for a week or so.  If we don’t keep up on taking this dose of anti-biotic and complete the prescribed treatment, the strep throat infection will remain and will make our lives unpleasant.  The same procedure of having a case of debilitating joint pain or injury recovery goes for an individual seeing a physical therapist.  The physical therapist will give a 4 to 6-week protocol of coming in to perform a rehab prescription of treating the affected area of the body.  Icing, heat therapy, range of motion exercises, and massage therapy are some basic techniques applied to the affected persons injury.  If the person does not go to the physical therapist for those 4 to 6 weeks, the likelihood of that person improving their physical ailment is significantly decreased.  Just like not finishing anti-biotics for strep throat, not finishing a physical rehab prescription will lead to suboptimal recovery.

An important life time fitness coaching lesson is to become aware of the pain and discomfort we feel in our bodies and avoid letting the body get so bad that we must go to a physical therapist to receive a 4 to 6-week recovery plan.  We can use that month and a half to live a healthy and fulfilling life.  The solution to avoiding the detrimental effects of injuries and annoying arthritic conditions is to listen to the pain signal sent from that specific part of the body and apply a recovery prescription.  If your knee hurts, make sure to treat them regularly.  Perhaps wrapping ice and elevating the knee for 10 minutes in the morning and the night everyday for a week would help alleviate these pain-like symptoms.  If you have a sore neck from poor posture at your desk job, follow a prescription of stretching routine and application of a topical analgesic, such as arnica or CBD oil, every morning and every night for a week.  When you have lower back pain, perhaps swallowing some homeopathic anti-inflammatory supplements such as tart cherry extract or turmeric daily for a week could help.  These prescriptions must be executed every day, not every now and then.  If you treat your physical pains in an “every now and then” approach, you are going to get “every now and then” results.

The research is continuously being done on what the best type of rehabilitative treatment is the best to maximally help joint pain and arthritis.  However, if we treat our symptoms with a dose of a specific self-care prescription, the likelihood of feeling better and living pain free is significantly increased.   Don’t just expect pain in our bodies to go away, approach them with a consistent prescription of injury prevention techniques.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 05

Alcohol and Life Time Fitness: Pick you Poison

Living in one of the most beautiful areas in the world, wine is embraced a unique part of the Napa Culture.  One of the benefits Napa locals have within arm’s reach is our world class wine and food scene.  Having a drink with friends or at a networking event is an entertaining experience for many people in Napa.  A glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail after work can also be a great way to let off steam.  As locals in Napa, we see wine as an expression of our culture.  We enjoy it on many occasions and people have integrated wine as a career path to become a significant part of their livelihood.

Our personal training clients in Napa frequently ask, “How much alcohol can I drink without ruining my fitness goals?”  The first thing we investigate to help guide people in a productive direction is looking at their decision making when choosing to consume alcohol.  While many people participate in activities centered around alcohol as a catalyst to enhance an experience, you pick your poison here.  Just like many privileges in life, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

After an intense, laborious day at work, it’s nice to put your feet up and open your favorite beer.  Perhaps going out to a local bar and watching the local sports team play while having some wine or a cocktail is fun.  Maybe there are social events involving your work place where a glass of wine while schmoozing with others welcomes new relationships amongst colleagues.    This can all lead to a good time.  But what happens when one glass of wine turns into two?  Or three?  Sometimes the environment that we are in can trigger us to have another serving of alcohol.

Consuming alcohol regularly can have the same effect as having regular desserts occurrence or drinking too many soft drinks.  Similar to the over abundance of guilty pleasure foods, alcohol possesses extra calories that cannot be absorbed or utilized as energy.  Eventually, this excess alcohol intake can trigger the storage of fat underneath our skin.  Additionally, the chemical breakdown of alcohol in our system takes longer to metabolize than standard food.  Excess sugars from alcohol can stay in our system longer and avoid being metabolized.  Just like any calorie in the body that doesn’t get used for energy or rebuilding lean muscle, left over calories will fluctuate toward fat cells.  Lastly, regular over consumption of alcohol is a potent diuretic.  Meaning that along with the elimination of alcohol in the digestive system, vital nutrients and hydration levels are decreased due to the powerful diuretic effects alcohol influences upon the body.

When answering the, “Can I drink alcohol?” question, we never impose a decision that is against what people want to do.  As discussed previously, wine and food are a significant portion of people’s lives.  However, as a personal trainer and nutritional consultant, promoting awareness on decisions that affect an individual’s life time fitness goals in critically important to getting the most out the journey to maintain a strong, healthful and happy life.  Light needs to be shed upon the events of regular alcohol consumption and how it’s easy to acclimate to over drinking regularly.  Alcohol is a barbiturate that has lethargic effects and dampens the desire to perform physical activity the next few days after enjoying a little too many drinks.  The desire to relax and sit down more increases when alcohol is continuously present in our social and leisure times, contributing to increased sedentary lifestyles and decrease physical activity.  Of course, indulging too much gives us nasty hangovers.  And I can’t name one person who enjoys going to work hung over let alone getting a bout of exercise in.  These are the downsides of partaking in alcohol as a priority over physical activity.

The solution we always recommend is make your life time fitness goals a priority when the opportunity to enjoy a drink is coming up.   For example, on the days that you foresee a work function including alcohol, perhaps you can focus on eating well balanced and vegetable rich meals before the event.  When the boys are out to the bar and want to watch the game, maybe you can plan a workout in the night before or even schedule a time to get a long walk in on the same day.  By prioritizing a healthy lifestyle before venturing out to enjoy some time having a few drinks, you can enhance your interaction with others.

Increasing awareness and mindfulness of physical activity, healthy eating, and plenty of sleep will improve your mood, give your more energy and help you be an fun, enjoyable person as you are having a few enjoyable drinks on your social time.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Facebook
Google+
YouTube
Instagram