Here are the Top Ten Benefits.

1. You feel amazing for the rest of the day. With interval training, endorphin production is ramped to the max. These naturally occurring opiates are produced in your brain in response to strenuous exercise. Interval training - due to its short bursts of intense activity - really get the endorphins flowing, and you feel fantastic.

2. Your resting pulse drops like a stone. When I’m doing consistent interval training, my resting pulse is 46 to 48. Resting pulse is a good measure of stroke volume - the amount of blood your heart pumps on each beat. The more blood pumped per beat the LESS your heart needs to beat each minute.

Cardiovascular exercise - over time - increases your stroke volume. Interval training is maximum cardiovascular exercise - and leads very quickly to increased stroke volume. Your heart rapidly increases its efficiency with consistent interval training. Your total lifetime fitness levels increase accordingly.

3. You save wear and tear on your heart. Because interval training increases your heart’s stroke volume, your heart beats less during the course of the day to provide the amount of blood you need flowing to your tissues. Less heart beats means less wear and tear. The hypothetical extrapolation is that your heart will last longer because you’re doing intense vigorous exercise. Pretty remarkable.

4. You get faster - which is why you’re doing interval training in the first place. Faster usually means funner - and you find yourself motoring along during your regular cardio training. Your regular cardio training becomes easier, and you’re having more fun while doing it.

5. Climbing hills is easier - this has all kinds of benefits. I used to run road races in Central Park in New York City. After I began interval training, I noticed that as a race went on - when we’d reached the parks’ infamous stretch of hills - I’d be passing all the people who’d passed me at the beginning of the race. I’d catch and pass them all on the hills. A great feeling! I developed a deep sense of race confidence I’d never had - all due to interval training!

6. You’re stronger and faster in every other form of cardiovascular activity. Having better endurance not only benefits hill climbing. Because your heart is much more efficient, swimming, cycling, cross-country skiing, and hiking all just got much easier. You can go faster, longer, and with better energy than ever before.

7. Decreased risk of high blood pressure. The evidence is in. Cardiovascular exercise has abundant medical benefits, including decreased susceptibility to heart disease. Interval training, being the most intense form of cardio, offers even greater benefits over time.

8. Lowered cholesterol levels. Again, cardiovascular exercise has consistently been shown to reduce blood cholesterol. Lower cholesterol has many medical benefits, including lowered risk of heart disease, arthritis, and other inflammatory disorders.

9. Stronger immune system. Your immune system responds positively to regular strenuous exercise. Interval training - due to its intense qualities - yields a heightened immune response. People who exercise regularly build-up a “shield” against colds and flu, and East Coasters often go through an entire winter without “getting sick”.

10. You get younger. Yes, really. The benefits of exercise are profound and impact both physical and personal aspects of your life. You sleep better. You wake up more refreshed. You skin glows. Your digestion improves. Overall, you’re healthy and well. Your attitude throughout the day becomes consistently positive. You have more ideas. You’re more creative. You’re more fun to be around.

And, all this is possible because you spent 30 to 60 minutes a day, four to six times a week, investing in your well-being!

Technorati Tags: aerobic exercise, interval training, running, senior fitness, total lifetime fitness, weight training

Dr. David Katz

Dr. Katz discussed solutions for ending the diabetes and obesity epidemics, including action steps for schools, physicians, government, communities, and individuals and families. In addition, Dr. Katz discussed two new initiatives - Nutrition Detectives, an exciting nutrition education program for elementary school children that is “Teaching Kids to Make Healthy Choices”, and Nuval, a nutritional scoring system, that helps consumers see – at a glance – the nutritional value of the food they buy.

Dr. Katz is Associate Professor in Public Health Practice at the Yale University School of Medicine and Director and founder of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center.

Technorati Tags: diabetes, Nutrition, Nuval, obesity

However, there’s plenty that can go wrong when you run. Running seems simple – and it is – but you need to know how to run. Here are the ten top tips that will help ensure you’re able to keep running, get terrifically fit, and most importantly, continue to enjoy your exercise and have a lot of fun.

1. Run with your head erect and your shoulders relaxed. Running helps strengthen your heart and lungs. If your head is down and your shoulders slumped, you’re preventing those important organs from working at peak capacity. Not to mention all the additional stress and strain you’re placing on your neck and upper back.

So run with your head held high, facing forward, and with your shoulders resting on the top of your rib cage. There should be no tightness in your neck and shoulders. Remember to breathe!

2. Let your arms relax. Do not hold your forearms rigidly at waist level. Do not pump your arms back and forth on every step. Your arms should float loosely at your sides. Your elbows are relaxed and your forearms float – they’re not straight and they’re not bent to 90 degrees.

When your pace increases and you’re exerting more effort, that’s when your elbow naturally bent to 90 degrees and your arms begin a slight pumping motion. When you’re running on the flat at a steady pace, let your elbows and forearms relax.

3. Kick your heels directly behind you. Due to faulty mechanics and weak muscles, most people unconsciously let their back kick fly out to the side. This is wasted effort. Think about your form while you’re running. Visualize your heels kicking straight behind you – this muscular economy will yield more energy. Eventually you’ll be able to run farther and faster.

4. Activate your abdominal muscles. Remember to use your abdominal muscles when you run. You don’t want to grip them tightly – but you do want to activate them. The result is running with a pretty flat stomach, rather than a belly that is hanging out and straining your lower back and leg muscles. Let your abdominals support your leg mechanics. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

5. Use high-quality running shoes. If your shoes aren’t the best, all kinds of injuries can happen, ranging from ankle sprains to shin splints to stress fractures. Running shoes should provide both anatomical support and shock absorption. So your shoes need to be the best. In my experience, New Balance running shoes are the best available. You’ll need to spend $100 or so, but your shoes should last two years if you’re running eight to 15 miles per week.

Online discounts are widely available, so for $100 you’re probably buying a $125 pair of shoes that will last two years.

6. Run intervals once a week. Running builds endurance by strengthening your cardiovascular system. Doing interval training once a week enhances your endurance by dramatically increasing your cardiac stroke volume and your respiratory vital capacity. The result - you have noticeably increased speed and increased reserves when you need a prolonged burst of energy.

Bottom line - interval training makes you stronger and faster. You get a lot of bang for your once-a-week buck. Please see our recent article Top Ten Benefits of Interval Training.

7. Do cross-training activities. Fitness training includes strength training, aerobic exercise, core exercises, and flexibility training such as yoga and Pilates. To be a healthy and fit person, all of these activities need to be done on a regular basis. I’ll discuss how to accomplish this on a year-round schedule in a forthcoming article.

Running and strength training are a powerful one-two combination. Each supports the other in a pretty magical process. Running makes you stronger in the gym and strength training makes you faster and more powerful on the trails and the track. And, you get ripped in the process. Good bonus.

8. Pay attention to what’s on the ground. When I was living in New York City, I’d run down East 72nd Street to get to the rest of my run at the Central Park Reservoir. Once or twice a year my running shoe would get caught in a sidewalk grate and I’d hit the pavement. Not fun. Thankfully I never dislocated my shoulder or fractured my wrist.

In San Diego I’m very lucky and run on real trails. I don’t have to sidestep Upper East Side nannies steering dual-carriage prams down Park Avenue. But California trails have their own hazards. Such as unexpected rocks and small boulders sticking up out of the ground. Yikes! So I’ve taken some falls here, too.

If you’re running regularly, sooner or later you’re going to take a spill. That’s how it goes. But you want to do your best to avoid falling, since bad things can happen. So run with your head up, of course, and at the same time keep scanning the ground for unexpected small obstacles. It’s just like driving your car. Pay attention all the time.

9. Enjoy your environment. In other words, stop [figuratively] and smell the roses. You’re running outside. Enjoy it. [By the way, running outside is so much more beneficial, physically, physiologically, and psychologically, than running on a treadmill.]

If you’re running in a city like New York, there’s plenty to appreciate. There’s always something or someone interesting to look at. Urban sights – animate and inanimate – are always inspirational. If you’re in the real outdoors like California or Colorado, nature presents new vistas everyday – the quality of the sunlight, cloud formations, smells and sounds of the forest, grasslands, or desert, and all kinds of birds, animals, and insects.

Running is glorious.

10. Finally, never, never run with hand weights. Running is running. Strength training is strength training. They support each other, but they definitely do not happen at the same time. All you’re doing if you run with hand weights is setting yourself up for injuries – neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and back injuries.

Not good. Not smart. Exercise time is not the time to multitask. You can’t speed up the process. Fitness takes time. Spend the time and be patient. You’ll reap a lifetime of rewards.

Technorati Tags: aerobic exercise, cardiovascular fitness, Pilates, running, Strength Training

More recently, in the November 20th, 2008 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine,
researchers recommended that statins be prescribed for millions of healthy people with normal cholesterol levels.

Needless to say, the NEJM study – in which patients were given the statin Crestor – was funded by AstraZeneca, which manufactures Crestor.

First, can you spell conflict-of-interest? The AAP recommendations and the Crestor study conclusions are irresponsible at best. At worst, well, I don’t want to go there.

Beyond that, what’s going on here?

We live in a culture of denial of responsibility. No one is responsible for anything.

• “Twinkies made me do it.”
• I had PMS.”
• “I have bad genes.”
• “It’s not my fault.”

A person’s relative balance of health and disease is usually evaluated on the same basis.

• Who is responsible for a lifelong two-pack-a-day smoker developing lung cancer? The tobacco company, of course.
• Who is responsible for someone gaining 50 pounds in a year? Well, the fast food chain is responsible.
• Who is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Americans developing diabetes each year? Candy manufacturers, naturally. Throw in doughnut-makers, too.

I’ll propose a radical concept - people are actually responsible for their own actions. Going further, in many cases people are responsible for the diseases and disorders they develop. It’s not that I’m a bad person, but I may be making choices that aren’t in my own best interests.

Lifestyle medicine is a relatively new term being used by many medical researchers and medical practitioners. From a lifestyle medicine perspective, many cases of diabetes, overweight and obesity, and high blood levels of cholesterol are caused by lifestyle choices. High-fat diets, high-sugar diets, lack of daily fruits and vegetables, and lack of exercise will cause people to develop diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol.

Lifestyle medicine is directed at causing people to choose healthy behaviors.

So taking statins when you’re healthy to prevent high cholesterol and associated cardiovascular and inflammatory disorders makes no sense. Giving medicines – whose long-term effects are largely unknown – to children makes even less sense.

Am I going to choose risky behaviors, causing me to possibly need medication down the road, or am I going to choose a healthy lifestyle and take responsibility for my own health and well-being?

Yes, statins like Crestor and Lipitor have helped millions of adults with serious health problems. Still, taking these meds is like slamming the barn door after the horse has run away.

Let’s see. If I’m healthy now, will I choose to maintain my good health by regular exercise, a consistent healthy food plan, and sufficient rest. Or will I take a bunch of drugs, let the medication hijack my formerly finely tuned metabolism, and hope it all works out like the study said?

The choice seems clear.

Technorati Tags: anti-aging, diabetes, Nutrition, obesity

Kat Wildish - White Swan - Swan Lake

Kat’s classes are very danceable, with a classic sense of line, musicality, placement, and style. The barre exercises are not just a warm-up series, but are anatomically sound and designed to improve the body. All parts of the dancer are exercised to promote harmony of movement according to each individual’s level of training and ability in a non-competitive atmosphere.

Kat Wildish - Sugar Plum Fairy - The Nutcracker

Kat Wildish teaches an integrative, fundamental maintenance syllabus for all types of dancers.

In our terrific wide-ranging Total Lifetime Fitness Radio Network interview, Kat discusses

• How taking ballet class work sinto a person’s efforts to stay fit
• What specific aspects of the body will benefit from ballet class
• How often people should take class to see positive effects
• Recommendations to help dancers keep their bodies injury free

Technorati Tags: ballet, core exercises, Fitness, injury prevention

Tom Terwilliger, former Mr. America

After winning the Coveted NPC National Bodybuilding Championship (Mr. America) title in 1986, Tom began a 16-year career as host and co-producer of the FOX Sports Net television show Muscle Sport USA. Today Tom and his wife Dawn are the founders of Coaching Leadership Excellence, a leading provider of personal growth and development tools and success strategies for fitness professionals throughout the world.

7 Rules of Achievement

Tom is a certified NLP (Neuro-Linguistics Programming) Master Practitioner, Hypnotherapy practitioner, Life Coach, ACSM personal trainer, and a regular contributing writer for IDEA Fitness Journal and Fitness Management. He is also the author of several books and training programs including The Inner Game of Confidence, Tele-coaching for Profit, and 7 Rules of Achievement. Tom is also the co-founder of The Leap personal development training program.

Tom has identified 7 very specific principles or rules that when strategically employed with passion and focus will program your unconscious success mechanism and lead to the achievement of any goal or desired outcome including weight loss, better health, and massive improvements in fitness levels.

Tom’s free report on success and achievement is available HERE

Tom is offering a 50% discount (good until November 23rd, 2008) to Total Lifetime Fitness readers on the purchase of 7 Rules of Achievement. Click HERE and enter the coupon code IGOT7RULES.

Technorati Tags: anti-aging, Strength Training, success, weight loss

Dr. Jill Baron

Jill Baron, MD is a board-certified Family Physician who practices Integrative Medicine in New York City. Dr. Baron’s practice combines conventional western medicine with holistic and mind-body therapies including nutrition, stress management, weight management, and menopause therapies. A graduate of Princeton University and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Baron currently lectures about stress to help people better deal with it, and live healthier, happier lives.

In our wide-ranging Total Lifetime Fitness Radio Network interview, Dr. Baron discusses some of the causes of stress, the symptoms of stress, and techniques we can use right now to help us manage our stress.

Technorati Tags: diabetes, integrative medicine, obesity, Stress Management

The Thinking Body

All this way back in the 1930s.

I’ve owned my copy of The Thinking Body for a very long time. I’ve read it cover-to-cover several times and it’s literally falling apart, but I treasure my old edition, which has helped me come back from many tough injuries.

This book is a true gold mine. Some of the chapter titles include

• The Working Skeleton
• Dynamic Mechanisms
• Balanced Forces in Walking
• Breathing
• The Proprioceptive System

Pretty much everything you always wanted to know about how your body works and how to use it efficiently and effectively.

Mabel Todd was talking about “dynamic warm-ups” almost 80 years ago. Dynamic warm-ups, of course, are now the hottest topic in fitness training. Core exercises are tremendously important and have now reached the mainstream fitness world. Where were the principles of core training first discussed? The Thinking Body.

I’ve been teaching people about proprioception for my entire 25-year career. Where did I learn about proprioception first? The Thinking Body.

At Total Lifetime Fitness we talk a lot about visualization. I learned that first in The Thinking Body.

The book is one of those miracle books. Almost all rehabilitation techniques, exercise science, and fitness training can be traced back to The Thinking Body.

Of course, most dance teachers, professional dancers, and Pilates instructors own their own personal copies of Mabel Elsworth Todd’s brilliant masterwork.

Our bodies are precious gifts. And the human body is a very complex piece of machinery. If we take it for granted, rust will accumulate. If we abuse it, parts will breakdown. And then we have to waste all kinds of time and resources trying to get well, trying to restore our bodies to good working order.

Better, of course, not to have to play catch-up, but regardless, there’s no time like right now to start restoring the relationship between our minds and our bodies. There is no real separation, after all. We get in a lot of trouble when we believe the various parts of ourselves are not connected.

Consider this. Just because you can walk doesn’t mean you know how to walk. Just because you can run doesn’t mean you know how to run. The November 13th, 2008 New York Times featured Learning How to Walk in the Thursday Styles section. The article described a new craze in New York City – learning-how-to-walk classes. Students learn how to “walk with their feet parallel, their weight evenly distributed, and their body aligned”.

Well, duh! One part of me wants to shout, “we should already know how to do these basic take-care-of-your-body-and-use-it-correctly things!” Another part says, “it’s good that people are taking action and learning how their bodies work”.

OK. Adult classes in how-to-use-your-body are probably very good things. But I’m concerned about our children. Mandatory physical education for all kids needs to include daily training in musculoskeletal dynamics and proprioception. Untrained, our bodies can only be a burden.

As most adults find out.

So, let’s do physical training ongoingly. The Thinking Body, with more than 90 detailed anatomical illustrations, is the owner’s manual you never had. The deep knowledge offered in this book will enrich all your fitness activities, and really, all your life experiences.

Technorati Tags: core exercises, kinesiology, proprioception, Strength Training

If someone pays you a supreme compliment by saying “you look like a dancer” or “you walk just like a dancer”, what they’re really saying is your body is graceful, lithe, and supple. They’re remarking on your ease of movement, your economy of flow, your balance, excellent posture, and quiet strength.

Dancers Practicing at the Barre, Edgar Degas, 1877, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In reply, you foolishly grin and mumble your thanks. I mean, can you really shout out loud and say, “YES! Thank you for acknowledging my years of hard work! All that time, all that effort, has finally paid off!”

Well, you could.

Seriously, how are dancers able to achieve all that and be all that? What are the things dancers do every class and every day that can benefit us in our health-and-fitness activities? Can we achieve comparable results? Yes, we can.

Love the Pain
Way back when, my jazz dance teacher used to tell us, “Love the pain”. Someone would have bravely – or foolishly – complained out loud about a particularly difficult exercise or dance step. Fred would turn his most withering look on the student, his eyes flashing. He’d pause for effect. All Fred’s long-time students knew what was coming next. “Love the pain”, Fred would declare loudly, making sure everyone heard. “That’s what we’re here for,” he’d continue, looking around at all of us.

It was a big lesson, and I’ve always remembered Fred’s message. When you love the pain, you keep going when you want to stop. When you love the pain, you don’t slack off. You don’t skip a day. You do the hard work.

And, surprise, when you keep going, when you do the work, you make a lot of progress. Your weight loss program begins to kick in and you discover you’ve lost 15 pounds! You notice you’ve gained some lean muscle mass thanks to your strength training program. You notice it’s much easier to climb stairs thanks to your aerobic exercise routine.

Why are you receiving all these benefits? Because you have continued, consistently, to follow your plan. You’ve learned to love the pain, both metaphorically and literally.

1/32 of an Inch
One of the exercises we’d do at the barre in ballet class was called tendu pique. Standing on a straight leg you’d slide the other foot forward on the floor as far as it would go, pointing the foot and keeping the little toe in contact with the floor.

My ballet teacher, Don, would have us do tenqu pique to the front, side, back, and side, maintaining and lengthening in each position for 32 counts – four measures of eight beats each. The goal of this 32-count tendu pique was not merely to create a straight leg, but to have the extended leg lengthen 1/32 of an inch on each beat!

“Your leg should be one whole inch longer at the end of each phrase”, Don would intone. What a concept! The length of your leg is the length of your leg, isn’t it? Well, no. What Don was requiring us to do was use the whole length of our legs. Not just to place the leg out in space, but to lengthen all the muscles and supporting tissues so the leg was highly energized and vibrantly straight. And, remarkably, at the end of the phrase my leg would have lengthed one whole inch!

This was a big lesson, too. Don was a brilliant teacher and his ballet classes were thinly disguised training grounds for becoming a self-actualized person as well as a dancer.

I want to get all metaphorical here about the 1/32 of an inch thing, but I’ll stick to what it means for fitness. Reaching 1/32″ on each beat during tendu pique means reaching energy. Not stiffening up or tightening or contracting or gripping or holding. Nothing like that. Reaching energy means seeing – visualizing – energy flowing down your leg, all the way down through the toes.

Or visualizing energy flowing down your arm, all the way down your arm through your fingers.

Reaching energy in this way creates muscular flow and balance and results in a very long line. When you’re reaching energy you’re working your musculoskeletal system to its maximum. There are no blockages. There’s only flow.

There are many implications for our fitness activities. The big idea, of course, is to visualize – to see in your mind what your body is doing during your specific exercises. When you can visualize, you can send energy. You can work efficiently and at a high level. And you’re building brain–muscle connections. Your body is getting much smarter.

So use the 1/32 of an inch approach. You’ll notice there’s more spring in your step. You’ll notice you’re a little taller. And you’ll notice your exercising has gotten a whole lot easier and you’re getting more out of your exercise time, mentally as well as physically.

We want fitness to be fun and we want our time and effort to be well spent. It’s possible for everyone to bring a dancer’s qualities of grace and flow into all our workouts, into all our lives.

Please visit What Dancers Know Part 1

Technorati Tags: aerobic exercise, ballet, Fitness, Strength Training, weight loss

Seriously, though, that statement is pretty much accurate. And in our fitness-and-exercise context, the dancer’s experience provides lifelong guidance. Here are some things dancers know.

Le Classe de Danse, Edgar Degas, 1873-1875, Musée D'Orsay

Hard Work
Well, duh. But really, that’s it. Dancers and gymnasts are arguably the fittest people in the world. Dance training provides flexibility, strength, speed, agility, and elevation [the ability to jump high]. You don’t have to take special category-specific classes or do various specialized activities to achieve these qualities. Dance training provides it all.

How you get there is the hard work. Dancers usually take two 90-minute classes per day, five or six days per week, year in and year out. That’s a lot of personal discipline and sacrifice. The results are magnificent. If we want comparable [for us] magnificent results, we must put in the time, we must do the hard work.

Process and Practice
Dancers know they’re in it for the long haul. Dancers are committed to the process of becoming a dancer and to the practice required to get where they want to go. It’s a goal that takes years to accomplish and it’s a goal that has no end-point. Dancers are always in training, they’re always taking class.

Dancers are always practicing, so their bodies know – deep down at the cellular level – exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. Dancers call this profound level of physical awareness muscular memory. And dancers learn to let muscular memory take over. Dancers know their bodies are much smarter than their conscious minds are.

There’s no thinking when you’re dancing. There’s 100% focus, concentration, and awareness, but there’s no thinking. Dancers’ bodies are doing the “thinking”. They can do this because of the years of training and practice.

Adults who want to get fit, be fit, and stay fit need to remember this long timeline. Fitness doesn’t happen in a month or even three months. Sure, you can make good fitness gains, getting slimmer and stronger, having more endurance. But the real power comes from embracing the process and practice of fitness.

The real power comes from a long-term commitment to being fit, healthy, and well. To being willing to take small steps, just as dancers literally do, day after day.

Mind-Set
A dancer’s mind-set is all about the moment, it’s all about the work-at-hand. Looked at from this perspective, being a dancer is a Zen process.

The work of dance is the work of right-now. This double turn, this pointed foot, this leg kick, this big jump. Whatever a dancer is doing right now has to be the best that dancer can do, right now. Otherwise, what’s the point?

If the work of the moment isn’t the very best you can bring to that moment, you’ll learn nothing, gain nothing, and your time and effort are wasted. More importantly, neither you, nor your body, nor your brain will grow. Dance is that clear-cut.

Dancers learn these lessons in their very first class. Maximum effort is required all the time. It is supremely exciting and life-affirming to be part of such demanding activity, to be part of a group that is fully engaged in being the best they can be, in every moment.

Strength training can be just like this. Running can be just like this. All our aerobic exercise. All our core exercises. Spin class. Pilates class. All of it.

What we can learn from dance and dancers is to take on bringing a total-commitment mind-set to all our fitness activities.

In this way we can learn to bring our very best selves to our fitness activities, all the time. Of course, there will be moments, even days, when we don’t completely get our act together. That’s fine. That’s part of what it means to be human.

Our level of commitment is what keeps us going. Dancers know this. Deep in their muscles, deep in their bones. Deep in their beautiful, shining selves.

Please visit What Dancers Know Part 2