Finding Balance in Your Health and Fitness goals.
Finding balance?
Hopefully you are still sticking to your New Year resolutions at this point in the year. And more importantly hopefully you took time to set goals for yourself relating to fitness, health, family, and financial. The health and fitness goal doesn’t have to state loose “x” amount of weight, but it does need to be measureable. All your goals should be measureable and your health and fitness goals should tie together. It is important to look at all your goals and see how they relate to your lifestyle and be sure they are balanced.
You should look at your life and set up buckets: family, social, work, health & fitness and spiritual. Once you have set up your buckets you should decide what percentage of time you need / want to delegate to each. Everybody’s buckets will look different, but everyone should have time and goals dedicated to each one. If you take a look at the big picture, you may have more success to sticking to your goals in a specific area. If your buckets aren’t balanced correctly to support your goals then you will have a harder time being successful.
For example your health and fitness goals need to have enough time allocated in that bucket in order for you to achieve your goals. If your goal is to work out three times a week for 45 minutes, but you only allocated 10% of your time to fitness, this might be hard to achieve. It is important that the goals are measureable, realistic and achievable. This is one part of being balanced. The other aspect involves integrating both fitness and diet into health goals.
If your goal is to lose weight then you must address diet along with working out. You don’t have to go on a diet per se, but you need to watch how much and what you eat. If it is easier for you to follow a specific plan then do that, if not I suggest you track what you eat by using one of the online tracking apps that are out there. For example, Livestrong.com provides Daily Plate, but there are many to choose from. And today you can download the app right to your phone. Your workout plan should include both cardio and strength. You need the cardio to burn the fat and the strength to tone the muscles and have the body process the fuel more efficiently.
Everything in life is about creating balance. Part of eating right is finding balance, everything in moderation and proper portion size. When you work out, you are training your body just to achieve balance through strength, stretch and cardio. You need to think about your health and fitness like you do your family and work life. If your buckets are out of balance your goals and quality of life will suffer. So do yourself the favor this year as you set up your 2012 plan, be sure to look at the whole picture and how you are going to achieve balance and achieve your goals.
Start your new year off right with fitness and wellness for the whole family
Get your family moving!
Happy New Year! If you recall last year at this time I wrote about keeping to your goals for 2011. Do you still have your sheet? Did you meet your goals? Never mind, it doesn’t matter, it is a new year and time to start over. This year I want to talk about making fitness and health a family affair. There is so much talk about obesity, both adult and child. I believe that good health and fitness habits are formed at an early age and just like anything else good habits start at home.
Research supports that forming good exercise habits early on in life will lead to a higher success rate, but so does exercising with a friend. Your exercise buddy can also be your one of your family members. As I looked back on 2011 I realized that we had a lot of family involvement at my studio. For example, we have Mothers and Daughters, sisters, husband and wives, and in some cases the whole family that workout together. Not only does this promote good fitness habits, but it promotes spending time with your family too.
I have seen some really great success with family members working out together over the years. There are a few situations that stick out in my mind. For example, I have a seen a lot of Mothers and Daughters that have enjoyed Xtend Barre together. The daughters are in their teenage years and used to dance, but have since quit dancing and the Xtend Barre workout fills the void they miss from dance. My studio in turn has offered a Mother/ Daughter workout for Mother’s Day and other special events. These classes and special events have been a great way to get folks to try something new, exercise and have fun! Have you ever been to a Zumba Feista or Zumba-A-Thon? Yet another great way to have fun and workout.
I have also seen family members join together to help another family member recover from surgery or get back into shape from an injury. Have you ever thought about working with a personal trainer or starting a Pilates program with a spouse, friend or sibling? I get a lot of clients coming out of physical therapy that choose to start Pilates to help strengthen their core. Not only does it get folks started with an exercise program, but it shows support of their family member as they are changing their lifestyles. I think these situations are my favorite.
If you are starting to think about a fitness program this year, take a moment to think about someone you love and see if they might be want to join you. Not only will you be changing the habits of two people, but you will have a partner in crime towards achieving your 2012 goals. And maybe, just maybe you will have some fun too!
Find your strength from within, starting with your Core!
It is never too late to start the road towards a stronger you. Pilates is a method that was designed by Joseph Pilates and focuses on transforming the body from the inside out, by developing the “Core”. Pilates is designed to strength the body and support the spine through a series of over 400 different exercises, both using the Apparatus and the mat. Start your journey to a stronger you at Turning Point Fitness!
Happy New Year!
We are ringing in 2012 with an updated schedule and our Re-Grand Opening / Ribbon Cutting Ceremony! Please join us Sunday, January 8th from 1 to 4pm. We are kicking off 2012 right by celebrating our new expansion space and schedule. We will be hosting studio tours, class demos, Pilates reformer demos, chair massages, and much more. Start 2012 with the gift of fitness to yourself!
Holiday Happenings at The Studio!
Happy Thanksgiving! Please note that there are no scheduled classes on Thursday, November 24th or Friday, November 25th. We will be offering a 9AM Pilates Mat class and a 10AM Xtend Barre class on Saturday, November 26th. Then please join us for our Post Turkey Workout on Sunday, November 27th at 4PM! Please call the studio to register. We will be offering holiday gift cards this season. These are great stocking stuffers! Buy $100 worth and receive an additional $20 bonus bucks.
”Meet You at The Barre” has a whole new meaning with this class!
Toning up the lower body at the barre
The Barre workout is a new fitness craze that is sweeping across the country and here in Westerville. Since the premier of the Black Swan, it seems women have sparked an interest in the ballet based Barre workouts. They have caught the attention of movie stars like Madonna and Zooey Deschanel. Why? Because they work and they target the areas that women want to work; arms, abs, glutes, and thighs.
The Xtend Barre Workout debuted in Westerville last September at Turning Point Fitness and has been very popular. Xtend Barre is a vigorous workout that combines serious sculpting exercises at the ballet barre with lively music and an abundance of energy. It is a full body workout and no dance experience is necessary. Created by former dancer and choreographer Andrea Rogers, the Xtend Barre Workout combines exercises at a professional ballet barre with precise concentrated movements to target small muscle groups. Plies, releves and a series of cardio exercises are combined with traditional principals as well as light weight training. The focus is on “shaping” muscles by first increasing muscle strength and then lengthening the muscles by stretching. Their tag line is, “Pilates and Dance Amplified”.
There are other barre workouts out there but they all follow a similar pattern and have something just a little different to offer. A typical class will start with a 5 minute warm up in the center of the room. Then you have some upper body toning with light hand weights, typically 1 to 3lbs, but a higher rep count. You’re not finished yet, grab your mat and head to the floor to do some pushups, planks, and tricep dips. Then you are off to the barre to do a series of toning exercises, sometimes using a ball or band. Xtend Barre even offers cardio segments that can take that heart rate up. After about 30 minutes at the barre you grab your mat again and head to the floor of some abdominal work and additional lower body toning. Between each segment you will do some stretching for the muscles you just worked.
Most barre workouts were developed from the Lotte Berk Method, which was started in 1971 New York, by a German dancer named Lotte Berk. Since then it has developed and Pilates and yoga based concepts have been added to the workout. It is a great opportunity for Pilates students to add a new workout into their routine, or it can lead students to Pilates. Most Pilates students feel like it is an upright Pilates mat class, which offers a whole new level of challenge. Not to mention barre classes are taught to upbeat music which differs from Pilates, and adds an additional element of fun.
If you haven’t tried a barre workout and are looking for something different to spice up your workout, you might want to give the barre a try. Or should I say, “I will meet you at the barre!”
New Space and a New Schedule
To welcome the Fall, Turning Point Fitness has a New space to go along with our New schedule. We are in the process of expanding our current space, which will include a new room for our Pilates Apparatus, TRX classes, and Pilates Tower classes. We are also adding some great new classes this Fall, so be sure to check out our schedule. Stay tuned for our Grand Re-opening!
TRX, a nice alternative to weights.
TRX, Chest Fly
One of the classes and pieces of equipment that I feel has yet to be recognized in the Columbus area is the TRX®. The TRX® suspension trainer is still a growing trend in the fitness industry. TRX® is not only a piece of equipment, but is a whole new system of strength training in itself. In addition to increasing one’s strength, you will also improve balance, flexibility, and mobility when using the TRX®.
The TRX® originated within the US Navy SEALS and was further developed by Fitness Anywhere. The equipment itself is lightweight, but very durable and supportive, therefore making it easy to travel with and use. It can be used in the home over a door, outside on a large well established tree, or inside a fitness facility for personal training or group classes. The TRX® just needs to be mounted to something that can support your body weight and the exercises you perform during your workout.
One of the things that I like about the TRX® is the ability to mix up your strength routine from weights and incorporate a cardio and core workout as well. Since all the exercises that are performed during a workout require you to hold good form and maintain a good core connection, you can’t really cheat. During a workout you will work all major 8 to 10 muscle groups and more, but instead of using weights for the resistance you are using your own body weight. You can increase or decrease the resistance by changing the angel of your body in relationship to the anchor of the straps.
The workouts can be varied each time which keeps things more interesting for the client. Fitness Anywhere has a wide range of videos and different workout routine available. However, I personally prefer to take class from an instructor, who can me challenge me and show different options for different levels. Which brings me to my next point, a TRX® workout can be good for people of all fitness levels and the workouts themselves can be 30 to 60 minutes and still provide a good sweat.
The TRX® is also used for a lot of sports conditioning for professional athletes. But it doesn’t have to be for just for the pro’s, it can do a lot for the teenage athlete. A lot of the exercises on the TRX® are targeting developing fast twitch muscle fibers which are needed for good sports performance.
Being a Pilates instructor I can appreciate the use of the “core” during a TRX® workout. I actually find that clients who have Pilates experience do better during their first few workouts because they do have a good connection. Having said that, just with any other exercise formatthe more you do it the better you become! If you are looking for something to mix up your strength routine you might want to give TRX® a try.
Back to school and back to fitness….
Pilates Mat Class
September marks the start of change, not only a change in season but a change in schedule and routine for most of us. Summer is over and we are back to school, back to work, back to a fitness routine. I find summer to be an interesting season for most people’s fitness routines. There are a lot of great options out there for people to take advantage of; biking, outdoor boot camp, swimming, boating, walking and running. And then there is the option of DO NOTHING, it is summer break after all!
Summer seems to be the ideal time for people to justify not keeping up with their workout routines. There are just too many viable excuses. The kids are out school, vacations, camps, and of course it is nice out and I will do something outside. This is a great option by the way, go outside do something different and take advantage of the weather. However, the weather then becomes our excuse, “It’s too hot to exercise outside.” My point is summer can be a lot like the holidays, easy to fall out of your fitness routine.
Well, it is fall and it is time to get back to it! As you are getting your kids back to their routine be sure to get yourself back to yours. Fitness needs to be part of your routine if you are going to keep with and commit to a healthy lifestyle. It is just too hard to stop and start again. It is like dieting. Don’t do it, just eat healthy and don’t deny yourself treats, just eat them in moderation.
I see a lot of people start a fitness program after the holidays and stick with it till summer and then they disappear. Sometimes I see them come back in the studio or gym in September, but sometimes not. School has started and there are sports and other activities that take our attention. Then the holidays are just around the corner. SO, we wait and start all over again in January. The people who have the most success with living a healthy and fit life are those who stick to it year round.
You may be reading this and saying to yourself, “well that is not fair, I need to take a break every not and then or, I need to work around my kid’s schedule.” Agreed I say! You should take a break from your fitness routine every now and then, just not three months. And yes, you need to work around your family’s schedule. I have two children, so I understand that need.
But be sure when you are putting together the new schedule for the season, make time for yourself. Schedules change, you adapt to your work schedule or your family’s schedule, be sure to adapt your fitness schedule as well. September is one of those months that we sit down and reevaluate so be sure to start now and get back into a routine that you can follow!
