Want to lose weight?

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Are you someone who needs to lose weight?  Have you tried everything under the sun but find yourself chalking it up to a slow metabolism?  Here are some tips that will help you:

Exercise hard at least 30 minutes, three times per week.  This can be anything that gets you out of breath, sweating, uncomfortable, and just plain working hard.

Do something to elevate your heart rate five times a week for an hour.  Walking, cleaning the house, washing your car, playing with the kids, sports, or basically anything that doesn’t involve sitting and watching TV.  And no, lifting the remote does not count as bicep curls.

Cut out the following foods from your diet: sugar, alcohol, refined starches, and anything that comes from a container with more than three ingredients.

Consume 75% less dairy and the bread, cereal, pasta, and rice section of the food pyramid.

Eat two or three servings of fruit everyday, no more and no less.

Eat lots of vegetables (don’t do bicep curls with the ranch dressing bottle either!).

Follow these rules and I’m certain you will lose fat.

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.

Fitness Tips

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When it comes to fitness tips, everyone seems to have an opinion. Best friends, next door neighbors, coworkers…ask any of them what you need to do to get in shape and stay in shape, and you’ll likely get any number of responses. Eat less meat, eat more spinach , run every day, purchase the latest fitness product on the market, or do whatever the latest fitness magazine tells you…and that’s just to name a few. You know my great uncle Leroy once told me that all I had to do to get in shape was to carry around a weed eater and push a garden tiller around all summer. Thinking back, I’m not quite sure that worked out as well as I had hoped it would; however, it did help improve my cultivating and lawn maintenance skills.

Anyway, with all of the opinions out there, where does one turn for good fitness information? Well, I’m a big fan of checking the literature, the empirical studies, yes the good ole’ scientific research. While I don’t think it’s necessarily the best idea to form an opinion based off of the results of one single study (after all not all research is good research, and one can usually find holes in just about any study ever done), analyzing research is ultimately the most effective way to separate the good information/advice from the bad. Or in this case, the good fitness tips vs. the bad fitness myths.

With that said, I browsed through some of the literature in the fitness field to see if I could find anything that sounded somewhat appealing. You can do it too. Simply google exercise research or something like that and scan through the results. Or, if you have a few minutes, browse through a research search engine such as pub med . Journals like the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise are great sources as well.

Here are just a few links to studies that address certain “fitness tips.”

1. Is it possible to lose weight by lifting weights? Check out this study published by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. (link)

2. Always take the elevator at work? This study may have you thinking again about the benefits of the infamous stairwell. (link)

3. Can’t remember what your spouse told you to buy from the grocery store? Maybe taking a walk will help you to remember. (link)

4. Having trouble achieving the fitness results that you desire? Sometimes all you need is a little extra motivation from someone special. (link)

Jamie Ives MA, CSCS, Master Trainer

Jamie has several years of experience in the fitness industry, working with clients of various ages, ability levels, and health conditions. He enjoys using his knowledge as well as his experience in exercise prescription and program design to help each of his clients reach their individual wellness goals and improve their quality of life.  For more information about Empower Personal Training, please call (919) 401-8024.

Exercise “Faux Pas’”

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Here was an interesting article that ran recently in Shape Magazine.

So, shall we have a little round table discussion about these 10 ‘faux pas’?”

I’ll start. Number 6. “Letting your knees shoot ahead of your toes, lifting your heels, dropping your knees inward. These mistakes place excess pressure on the tendons and ligaments of the knee.”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that won’t go over well with the ‘norm.’ The knee extending out past the toe is not a problem at all as long as the knee is TRACKING the toes. What you don’t want is the knee collapsing inward toward the center line of your body or, even worse, pulling out. It should extend right over the foot. As long as it does this, bio-mechanically it is doing what it was made to do.

Olympic weightlifters have the least amount of knee injuries of all olympic sports and if you look at their form as they squat or clean you’ll see that very often they’re knees go WAY past the toes but it always tracks the foot.

The main problem with most people’s squat form really isn’t the knees, it’s the ankles. Most people need to develop better ankle flexion in order to serve the full range of motion in the squat. If someone bends to far forward and can’t get their thighs to at least parallel in the squat, the primarily culprit is most likely the ankles. This is also going to cause the body to compensate in other ways – such as the aforementioned drop of the knees toward the center-line of the body taking them out of alignment with the foot.

So all that said, which faux pas are you into?

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

Train the Trainer is Back!

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Empower Personal Training is hosting the fourth annual train the trainer.  It will be held on Saturday, May 1st.

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Caring House (link) which is a special place that provides adult cancer patients and accompanying caregivers with a comfortable, supportive, and affordable place to stay during outpatient treatment at the Duke Comprehensive Care Center (DCCC).

Come at 10:00 AM for a FREE boot camp that will be kid friendly and a lot of fun.  From 11:00-12:00 we will have an open house where people can do a tour of the facility, get a free chair massage, and enjoy refreshments with the staff.  The insanity begins at 12:00 PM when our clients will be able to purchase blocks of time to train their trainers!  Each $25 donation to the Caring House (tax deductible) will earn you 5 minutes with your trainer.

We look forward to seeing you all on Saturday, May 1st to support this great cause and have some fun!

Katy enjoying a wall sit

Kettlebells

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A kettlebell is a cannonball with a handle.

You can use them to work every muscle in your body.  Kettlebells can be used to achieve any fitness goals you may have.  Too cold outside for a run and don’t have access to a treadmill?  Do kettlebell swings for 20 minutes and you have an aerobic workout.  Looking to increase your power and coordination?  Grab a kettlebell and do some snatches or clean and presses.  Want to know my favorite core exercise?  Try a Turkish get-up (watch).

The best part about kettlebells is that you can perform all the same exercises that you would normally do with dumbbells like presses, rows, lunges, bicep curls- you don’t need to be an expert.

If you feel like you need some instruction come in to Empower and try out our Saturday kettlebell class.  It starts at 9:30 AM every Saturday and the first one is free of charge.  You can just show up or sign up here for your convenience.  Cheers!

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.