The Body & Movement

Heat up in Winter

If you find yourself feeling cold on these frigid winter days we’ve been having, you have two tools at your disposal all the time that can help you warm up: movement and specific breathing patterns.

Our muscles are efficient little furnaces They are great at heating us up. In fact, when we engage our muscles around 80% of the energy created becomes heat. Only about 20% goes into the muscle movement. To heat up quickly you’ll want to do a few full body moves that use big muscles. For example squats brining your arms over head, jumping jacks, or large marches in place while pumping the arms. Use your whole body, but definitely involve the legs and glutes because they have some of our biggest muscles. You can even simply tense your muscles. Try that with me now. Tense you arms, legs, glutes, abs. I feel that heat right away, do you?

Now, the key to remember when you want to move to heat yourself up is not to do so much. You don’t want to do squats or jumping jacks until you start sweating because then you’ll just get cold again. Try 5- 15 reps of any exercise. If […]

Heat up in WinterMaggie Downie2022-02-16T16:39:49-05:00

Fitness Trends 2022

As we start a new year, we are seeing two distinct splits in the fitness trends for the coming year. At first appearance they seem in opposition (and may be), but they might just help create a good balance between each other. One had been building since the pandemic, the other is a return to basics and simple movement.

Virtual Classes

Just like in 2020 and 2021, people still are turning to virtual classes. Virtual classes remain easy, convenient, time efficient, and an option when spikes of illness appear. From the privacy of our own home we can still get our workout in, but see others and get instruction in a virtual class.

(Want to try one of our pre-recorded virtual classes? Click here.)

Wearable Tech

We continue to see people using wearable technology like Fitbits and Apple watches. These tools are used to track steps, mileage, heart rate and other health and wellness variables. People are posting their results on social media, which can sometimes help maintain accountability to reach our goals.

Fitness technology companies revealed at this year’s CES (a massive consumer technology trade-show that just […]

Fitness Trends 2022Maggie Downie2022-02-06T13:34:37-05:00

Fitness Holiday Gift Ideas

Buying a loved one a fitness gift provides more than just the surface level gift. It shows you really care about their health and wellness, which is key to a quality life. Here are some of my favorite fitness holiday gift ideas for all types of friends this year:

For the Fun Fitness Type:

How about going a little retro with a pogo stick? Sure you can get this gift for a child, but you can also find one for your silly, fun loving, Tigger-impersonating friends. If you opt for this just make sure it’s weighted for an adult. I’ve seen them weighted up to 180 pounds.

If you have a group of friends that workout together or you know a sports team that exercises together, consider HIIT the game. It is a card game where you draw high intensity exercises, but along the way you can swap cards with players or make someone do an exercise you don’t want to do. You get points for each move you can complete.

For the Practical Fitness Type:

A fun water bottle is a good reminder for anyone in your life to stay hydrated. This is especially important when we exercise.

Gaiam now makes foldable yoga mats. While […]

Fitness Holiday Gift IdeasMaggie Downie2021-12-20T14:56:44-05:00

How Many Steps A Day?

Many of us believe we are supposed to walk 10k steps per day. The truth is that there has never been research to back that up. The number comes from a 1960’s, Japanese ad campaign for the first pedometer. Clearly the campaign worked because we’ve all been believing it ever since.

But now we have three research studies that indicate, perhaps to some people’s delight, that we may not need 10k steps for a substantial benefit. It looks like the magic sweet spot is between 7,000 and 8,000 steps. Upon crossing that threshold people decrease their chances of mortality by all causes by 50-70%.

These studies showed correlation not causation, so it is not evidence that walking makes you live longer, but people who walk certainly live longer. If you’d like to be in the “live longer” group, I’d encourage you to build up to 7k steps per day.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting if you already walk more than that (perhaps you have gotten in the habit of 10k steps) that you should reduce your goal. Increased steps was correlated with even more gains, but the most profound leap in longevity came […]

How Many Steps A Day?Maggie Downie2021-11-14T16:40:11-05:00

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy

We’ve all heard the phrase, No Pain, No Gain in relation to exercises. It’s a popular expression but it is not true. Actually, it’s potentially harmful.

When we think No Pain, No Gain in terms of exercise we tend to think that either our workout should be grueling, or we should be sore the day or two afterward. If we aren’t then we presume we haven’t done enough. The problem is working out and pushing through pain increases our risk of injury. Once we are injured our whole workout plan can be derailed. Plus the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) we feel 24-48 hours after a workout isn’t practical or functional. We are more likely to get injured then because we have to alter the way we naturally move to work around how sore we are.

While you can choose to only do an upper body workout every other day, you can’t not use half your body for a whole day. We need our arms to pick up our children, reach for something off the top shelf, and open the refrigerator. We need our legs to go upstairs, get in and out of […]

The No Pain, No Gain FallacyMaggie Downie2021-10-15T16:20:14-04:00

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