4fitbodies.com

Well I am in the process of renewing my Board Certification for Personal Training. Since I track on this, I have taken all of the continuing education required and I have maintained my CPR and AED certifications with the American Heart Association.

But it means that almost 4 years ago, I earned my board certification for personal training from NASM. And since then, I have had a chance to grow and expand personal training. And I have had a chance to train and watch the results of so many wonderful personal training clients. I cannot tell you what a rewarding career this is and I look forward to watching all my current and future clients grow and succeed.

Tags: Sports Fitness by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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I have lots of people tell me almost daily that they are doing EVERYTHING but are just not getting results. Now, to me — this means you are not DOING EVERYTHING

And I do not mean that in a cruel way. Sometimes — actually MOST OF THE TIME – these people believe they are really stepping it up and not getting there. Well, here are some things that can trick you into thinking you are doing it all — and these things all mess with your fitness and weight loss results.

1 — Liquid calories — are you drinking a lot of juice, soda, iced tea, coffee drinks — these all contain hidden calories and can add up to hundreds of calories a day.

2 — Cardio — are you doing all the cardio that your personal trainer has told you that you need. Remember 45 minutes does not include the time you took to stop and talk to someone, the time you spent getting started, etc. And if you are using an elliptical — are you working out INTENSELY enough? It is too easy to just go through the motions so if you are not sure, change to the treadmill for a week and see if you notice the difference.

3 — Strength training — do you do a strength training workout? A fitness class, even one with weights is not strength training. You need to lift weights regardless of your age to build not only bone density but muscle density which burns calories even when you are not working out.

4 – PORTIONS — this is perhaps the BIGGEST issue for a lot of people. How much is a cup? Take out a cup and actually measure a cup of cereal. Put 2 cups of salad onto a plate. It is very difficult to get a hold of your portions if you don’t. You end up eating too much of things your should limit and too little of fruits and vegetables.

5 – Restaurant Meals — It really does not matter what you eat in a restaurant — it is rarely healthy. Even “grilled vegetables” are usually brushed with butter so they look better. So really, try to learn to eat at least a few of your meals at home. You will be healthier, more in control of your diet and you will save money. If you are not sure of what to cook, I have a whole site dedicated to that very topic with tons of healthy recipes and new ones added every day so if in doubt, have a look at Douglasville Weight Loss

6 — Are you actually hungry. Addicts are told to be careful of what they call HALTT — hungry, angry, lonely, tired or thirsty. Well, some people are addicted to food and to their eating habits. So ask yourself this same list of questions. Are you ACTUALLY THIRSTY?? Are you just bored and lonely and watching TV? Are you eating more from habit and less from need?

I hope these help you get control on some of the things that can be sending you off the rails. If you still do not see results, I would suggest at least a handful of personal training sessions to get you back on track because there is more going on.

Tags: Douglasville, Fitness, Nutrition, Personal Training, Weight Loss by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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Preventing Injuries
David Hansey
NASM Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist
NASM Certified Sports Fitness Specialist
NASM Certified Personal Trainer

I get a lot of questions from people on how to recover from injury and how to work out without aggravating an injury. Well, the best time to think about injury prevention is before you start training. We are all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and different levels of conditioning. This is why regardless of whether you are training for sports or whether you are training for fitness, you should do something that is unique for you.
So before you begin training, approach it in a scientific way so that you do not get to a point where you have to worry about recovery. First, before any training program, you need to sit down with your doctor and your trainer and review your fitness level and overall health. Are you seriously overweight? Then it is great that you want to get in shape or play a sport but it is also crucial that you understand your unique limitations. Are you going to put undue pressure on your joints? Do you have other health concerns? Or previous injuries?
Kids are a perfect example here. Kids today cannot go from couch to playing field. Most of them are just not in condition to play many sports without serious risk of injury. It is important that your body be conditioned to handle the demands of your sport. A study conducted by the National Association of Sport and Physical Education found that 50% of sports injuries are from overuse. You know these injuries. You know these as tennis elbow, golf elbow, lower back pain from golf, shoulder pain from baseball, etc.
The more interesting part of that study was that half of the sports injuries studied were found to have been preventable. How do you prevent them? By warming up, doing proper training for the sport and changing poor mechanics.
Many of us feel we understand these concepts. However, most people do all of these incorrectly or not at all. Warming up is NOT stretching. It is getting the muscle limber and warm so it can handle the demands of stretching during the sport. So, for example, if your sport is golf, this would mean moves like lunges and arm circles more than stretches.
Training for sports is another area where many people think they are doing the right thing. Even coaches get this one wrong. Even professional coaches have had this one wrong at times. Consider the elite tennis player. Coaches in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s used long distance running as a training tool. The mileage these athletes ran was great for cardiovascular conditioning but did nothing for the court game and did damage to joints. Tennis does not require that you can run at a steady pace in a forward motion for several miles. It requires you to run in many different directions (half of the game is lateral movement) in quick sprints. By running long distances, the athletes were never actually training for the sport.
Poor mechanics is another way to easily be injured. Many sports injuries are caused by this but many people also use poor mechanics at the gym. Lifting weights, whether in a fitness class or on a machine or on your own, is not just grabbing a weight and lifting up and down. If it is a machine, there are adjustments to make the machine fit you. If it is a free weight in the gym or in a class, there are key alignment issues for your body. And that is after you have ensured that these exercises are the right ones for you. Poor mechanics means you are not performing the move correctly. Normally this is due to the fact that you have weak or tight muscles that do not allow you to perform the move correctly and you compensate for those. An example is to do a squat and see if you move your knees in or out or turn your feet or lift your heels. Those are all compensation moves that make up for weak and tight muscles. Continually doing moves incorrectly can lead to injury because you put undue pressure on your joints. All the training in the world will not help you improve if you do not identify and target the weak and tight muscles and take steps to do corrective exercises for those muscles.
For more information on Sports Specific Training, visit my website at www.4fitbodies.com.

Tags: Chapel Hill News, Douglasville, Personal Training by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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Functional Training – Not just for Sports

David Hansey
NASM Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist
NASM Certified Sports Fitness Specialist
NASM Certified Personal Trainer

I talk a lot about training for sports here. And while sports are a fun part of a lot of people’s lives, I think sometimes people think that personal training is only for the athlete. They forget that we are all involved in the sport of life and that life takes a toll on us in more ways than our sport ever could. You know when you hear about someone bending over and not being able to get back up because they have hurt their back so badly. Or someone’s knee just “giving out” and they fall and are injured. These are not freak accidents. They are signs from your body that you have been doing damage for a while and it finally has to let you down because it just cannot take the abuse anymore. Functional training allows you to stop abusing your body and allows you to do these things without the worry that you are going to injure yourself.

Do you lift children and packages in and out of your car? Do you sit at a desk (or in your vehicle or on a plane) for large periods of time? Do you have to stand for long periods of time? Are you a caregiver (to an adult or child) who must lift someone regularly or in an emergency? These are just examples but I think you will find that regardless of profession or lifestyle, we all have times where we do movements that put a strain on our body.

I realize that this kind of training may not be as glamorous as sports training, but the functional training concepts people use for sport training can help you do all of these things better. One of the concepts of functional training is to lift weights in a method that emulates the movement you are trying to perfect. So for example if you play tennis, you would have weight training movements that emulate the reach of the serve and you would do drills that emulate the quick directional changes required for tennis. A baseball player may use cable crossovers to emulate the motion of swinging a bat. Well this twisting weighted movement also works well for anyone because we all lift things out of our cars and twist with them. Think of all the times you lift your groceries or your golf clubs or your children out of the car.

Now that said, I don’t want to see everyone at the gym just twisting all over the place. The idea of personal training is to design a program for your life, your goals and your needs. In order to truly get a routine for you, you have to spend some time with a Certified Personal Trainer who can do an assessment on your posture and your movements in order to determine if you have any tight or weak muscles that need to be corrected. When your trainer pairs that assessment with your goals (to not have a stiff back in the morning, to lose 15 pounds, to run the Peachtree, etc) then it is possible to design a program that you can work on to meet these goals.

Functional training movements in your customized workout will make major differences to an athlete’s performance when they are added to a workout. And they will make a major difference in not only your fitness and appearance but also in the quality of life. Those little aches and pains like that sore back when you lift your toddler will be gone. For more information on Functional Training and Sports Specific Training, call me at 404-514-1896 or visit my website at www.4fitbodies.com.

Tags: Chapel Hill News, Douglasville, Personal Training, functional training by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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