Considering Buying a Home Gym?

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Are you thinking about starting a home gym? You can go as crazy as you want purchasing equipment but you can achieve almost any fitness goal with two things: a TRX strap (Link) and adjustable dumbbells (Link).

The TRX strap is a high quality piece of equipment that will last you for years even with heavy usage. It’s an adjustable strap that enables you to perform exercises for all body parts. You control the resistance by walking your feet closer or further away from the anchor point of the strap.

Dumbbells will complete your at home gym. Dumbbells give you more freedom isolating muscles in weak areas. They will also complete your exercise arsenal with a few exercises that you can’t perform with the TRX strap (dead-lifts and Turkish get-ups to name two).

Here is an example workout you could do with dumbbells and a TRX strap:

On TRX strap:

1. 20x squat to row
2. 10x lunge to fly each leg
3. 15x body pike to overhead raise
4. 10x lunge to overhead raise each leg
5. 20x pushups
6. 20x hamstring curls
7. 20x jackknifes
8. 30x floor wipers

With dumbbells:

1. 20x dead-lifts
2. 10x Turkish get-ups each side
3. 30x prone pull-in

If you enjoy pain do this circuit two times. If you’re feeling especially masochistic do the circuit three times.

If you need help planning exercises to do on your own call (919) 401-8024 to set up an appointment with a qualified professional.

Paul Piracci, CSCS Professional Trainer

Paul brings a background of athletics and education to the Empower team. He believes that wellness should be viewed as a blended lifestyle that balances nutrition, a healthy mind, and fitness which incorporates fun recreational activities. For more information about Empower Personal Training please call (919) 401-8024.

Epic

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Do you ever use this word to describe something? Have you ever said something like, “man, that was an epic workout” or “that movie was epic” Well I think I have something that helps to define’epic.’

Epic.

In case you hadn’t heard this was a tennis match to end all tennis matches. This was the EPIC of tennis matches. Somewhere close to 150 games were played to decide the outcome of this one match. It took approximately 11 hours to finish. 11 hours. Ironman triathletes do 11 hour races. You could fly from NY to England and drive to Wimbledon and still have about 3 hours to spare. Drive from NC to NY City and you’d still be able to take an hour off to catch an off-broadway play.

The endurace of these athletes (not to mention their strength) is phenomenal. Especially when you consider how often they had to serve the ball. How often the volleyed. How often they stared at each other and wished for everything in their being that either this was the last one or the guy across would just give up.

This was pretty amazing and by all rights epic.

You want motivation. The next time you do that 60 minute workout. Think of these guys and see if you can’t push that much energy into the hour you’ve got. Give it everything. Leave nothing on the plate. I guarantee when these guys were finally done they had nothing in their tanks. They were empty, spent, obliterated.

See if you can obliterate yourself, walk away and come back the next time that much stronger. That is what fitness is.

Mike Babbitt, M.F.A, M.A., CSCS, ACSM-HFI

USA Triathlon Level 1 Coach, Master Trainer

Mike is a Master Level trainer at Empower Personal Training. He has a unique approach to fitness that combines his scientific foundation of research and applied exercise physiology with his artistic experience as a professional stage actor. For more information about Empower Personal Training please call (919) 401-8024

The Next Big Thing

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Empower is kicking off it’s first annual “Peak to Peak Challenge.” Throughout this challenge participants will competewith themselves to reach fitness goals based on adding more cardiovascular activity to their current regimen. The challenge is to reach the top of each of 4 mountain peaks (Mount Mitchell, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, and Mount Everest). Each peak will require participants to earn a specific number of points (see the studio board for the point system).

Strength and Running?

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The term sports-specific training, while not new, has gotten to be a ‘buzz’ word recently, especially with the massive growing popularity in triathlons. Sports-specific training should make up the bulk of your training IF you are an athlete (age-grouper or pro) who is mainly interested in performing at your sport exclusively. BUT, general conditioning as well as strength and power conditioning are foundational in their ability to allow you to capitalize on all that sport specific training.

Come join us at Empower Personal Training for our Strength Training for Runners class. It’ll dispel some myths and make you stronger AND faster.

Running, Next Step and Coaching

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Branching out is always a difficult thing whether it be a new hobby, a new face to say hello to, or, as in this case, bringing endurance athletics to Empower’s already phenomenal personal training and one-stop wellness package. Empower want you to help us take the Next Step as well as taking it yourselves.

In the next few weeks we’re launching Empower’s Next Step Endurance program. Master Trainer Mike Babbitt will be coaching the program and hopefully inspiring a few folks to take that leap. The program is for anyone who wants to run, can run, or is already running. The beauty of the program is that it’s as individual and personalized as Empower’s Personal Training. It’s one on one with your coach.

So what does “one on one with your coach” mean?

It means you’ll work with Mike to fine tune and hone a program to help you reach your running goals, whatever they may be. If you’re already an age-group runner, we’ll work to help make you a stronger and faster runner. Just starting for the first time? We’ll progress you from walking, to a combination of the two and finally to running your selected goal distance.

It also leads to one of the most important things about this program that makes it unique. The relationship you develop with your coach. You need to know what your getting; what to look for, what to ask for, and what to expect from a coach. Here is a provided link to an article that sums up quite eloquently just how to get these things. It was written several years ago by a coach named Gordo Byrn. Byrn spent ten years transitioning from an self-professed over-weight coach potato to a professional ironman triathlete. Byrn knows the ropes from the beginner to the elite and this article is terrific.

Coach Gordo Byrn and Getting the Most from Your Coach

If you’ve got any questions on the program or the article, drop Mike a line here at the Empower Blog.