Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form — no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space — ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold — the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

"Continuities"
Walt Whitman

I've been pondering the "nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost" part lately. I've had a lot of old friendships I thought were lost causes that have suddenly come full circle. Even after years and years of cycling negative habits with each other and a lot of letting go and cutting off...we come back. Maybe we do something for each other. Maybe at one point, we drastically impacted each others' lives for the better. And maybe we finally recognize and are unafraid of the fact that we need each other. Maybe no matter how much we love and care for someone, at some point, that affection truly needs to stand the test of time apart in order for it to be genuine. Maybe in the mean time, it's just "surface" before it actually becomes something deeper and lasting.

Love really is a choice. It's not the rainbows and butterflies and the hugs and kisses. Love even
happens when you let go for the better. Love is an unconditional, never ending supply of forgiveness, grace, mercy, and acceptance for who we are, just as we are, as we come as we are into each other's lives. We are love, or at least we should be.

Anyway, God love ya if you're still with me in this journey. God have mercy on all our souls. :)

Off to the gym for weekend cardio with my workout buddy...

xoxo
Bethany

You're beautiful, you're confusing. You're illogical, you're amazing...
"Empty Space" Lifehouse

You Are Here

"There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." -CS Lewis

October 25, 2010

Near the end of today's session, I noticed a small leaf growing through the crack of the concrete. To me it represents perseverance. Achieving any goal requires you to push against all odds to overcome the obstacles. It will be tough, it will be hard work...but it will be a labor of love for yourself. You are becoming stronger, leaner, healthier as you push, lunge, squat, pull, and twist each rep you do... you are the little leaf growing through the concrete.

A Mission and Labor of Love

In a nation where we are constantly bombarded by the media with infomercials on the latest fitness trends and the hottest super-supplement on the market, I want to bring a more holistic and balanced approach to what a healthy lifestyle should be. With the population estimated to being 80% overweight/obese by the year 2013, people are so quick to medicate and find quick fixes, not realizing that it is just like placing a band aid on a bullet wound.

As a trainer, I see exercise and nutrition as preventative medicine. Fitness-wise, we need to work to treat the ailments of inactivity and poor food consumption in order to treat the disease of the obesity epidemic…not the symptoms. We shouldn’t rely on supplements to replace the real things that our body truly craves: to be able to move and be nourished well.

Stay hungry... :)

Bethany

Behind The Scenes of Working Out

When I worked in the gym, there were 3 types of people:
1. The Creatures of Habit: those who came in, day in and day out at the same hour everyday and did the same cardio equipment everytime...and didn't look any different from the previous year.
2. The Smart Ones: those who worked out consistenly with a smarter, educated approach to working out (because they sought after the knowledge of wanting to do their bodies right) and actually saw muscle gains or fat loss over time.
3. The Alice in Wonderland people: those who came in, not knowing what to do or how to train. So it didn't matter what they'd do...they'd end up doing a little of this and that sporadically.

In addition to that, I would get ask the same questions over and over:
"What should I eat before I work out?"
"Is cardio better before or right after weight training or a separate time?"
"Doesn't doing cardio and training with weights burn the same type of calories/energy?"
"Am I not burning fat during my workouts?"
"How to I get 'toned' arms?"

So let me break down the mystery of training in the gym...and why some people are stupid. :)

Aerobic training (cardiovascular activity, aerobics) uses the fuel source primarily from fat and small amounts of glucose. The recovery factor is a 1- 3 recover rate. This means that if you workout aerobically for 1 hour, it will take about 3 hours for your body to replenish the fuel source. An example would be in long distance runners: when you first begin training for distance or time you are limited to the amount of fuel your body can store because you have not allowed your body to acclimate to the work load. Beginners who have not trained aerobically will not be able to have the endurance to go beyond what their body can do, but through proper training, their aerobic capacity will increase.

Anaerobic training (football, power lifting and weight training) for strength use ATP stores of energy mostly from glucose (what the body breaks carbohydrates down to) or sugar in the blood system. A pre workout meal should consist of fruit or some kind of quick, attainable source of food, such as apples, pears, melons, bananas, kiwis or rice, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and some nuts. The denser the food the longer it will last in your system. The recovery cycle is a 1 – 1 recovery rate. This means that if it takes 30 seconds to reach failure, then muscles are refueled in the same amount of time. This is why it is so important to continue the failure process and recovery process in a systemic and consistent manor. Once the process begins it should continue until the muscles have reached total failure and the fuel is completely used up. This is usually felt when muscles feel full and tired. This is why most really fit people only should train no more then 45 min per training session. The body can only hold on to a certain amount of fuel at any given time. Over-training usually occurs and progress stops. The more advance the weight trainer, the more fuel the person can store. So a newbie in the weight training experience really only has about 30 minutes or less of fuel. It’s all about adaptation to the amount of fuel you can store, like a small car with a small fuel tank and a large car with a large fuel tank. This is another reason why it is very difficult, if not impossible, to train two people at a time in a strength training program.

Mind to Muscle recruitment process
A muscle bundle is like a cable with a bunch of internal wires. When a muscle bundle is new to a work load it can only fire a small amount of wires (fibers), maybe 25%. After a period of time at this work load, the muscles will start to adapt; this adaptation is the recruitment of more wires or muscle fibers to the brain. The body can only fire about 90%; this is why great athletes are better then good ones. The great athletes are working 90% and the good ones are working maybe 80% or less. World class bodybuilders are using up to 90% which means they are failing 90% to get to 90% growth as opposed to novice bodybuilders only using 50-75% of growth potential. This is the reason for added sets, not necessarily reps because you are trying to increase the body’s ability to fire more fibers in order to fail more fibers. It really doesn’t matter how many reps you do because failure can be reached with 1 rep or 100 reps. Remember, the muscle only knows 3 phases: Atrophy (shrinkage), Hypertrophy (growth), and Sedentary (Not growing and not shrinking) stages. If you are working out and not failing the muscle then you are in sedentary mode. This is usually where most people will waste years of time in the gym looking for what everyone calls “definition.” Definition can only happen when there are a significant amount of muscle gain and a significant amount of fat loss.

Train smarter, people.

Have a healthy day :)
Bethany

PS: Next up - The difference of weight training, strength training, and power lifting.

**Special thanks to Curt Babin: a great friend, mentor, and fellow trainer/colleague for helping me compile this post**

"The Myth of Discipline"

My goal for any starting client is to simply make better choices out of love: Self Love. Love for your health, your families, your job, your friends…it all begins with taking better care of ourselves. What this means is we need to be better prepped for life’s daily stressors. Our lives are chaotic and polluted with things to do, people to see, and all sorts of tasks that keep us going and going. Life is going to happen, it’s inevitable and we cannot stop doing what we do, but we can prepare our bodies to ensure that our physical, mental, and emotional responses mirror that of being stable, balanced, and healthy. Science likes to call this “homeostasis.” Before demanding more from your body, you have to give more to yourself. Through a more educated approach to fitness and nutrition, we can transform the human body to be an internal environment strong enough to take on fluctuating, external stimulus. The best thing we can do out of love is to look after ourselves as individuals. Only then can we take on showing love and care for the people around us.

“There is no such thing as discipline. There is only love. Love is the most powerful creative force in the universe. You are the result of what you love most.” Charles Poliquin

Here’s to loving who we are!
Bethany

**"Self Love" theme adapted from Cathy Savage Fitness. Post inspired by DCB.**