Another great place for your kids to see what a great parental example of fitness you are is at the gym. If your kids meet the age requirements for the club, add them to your membership. You could be setting them on their way to having great health FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE!! What better gift can you give them? It is like giving them a great education; it will keep giving long after you are gone from this earth.

Going to the gym can be a great thing for you to do with your kids. I see people all the time going to classes with their kids. And not just Moms, I see lots of Dads and sons heading to classes too. Sometimes, I even see grown children coming to the gym with their parents and their own children. What a great way to spend time with your family.

My point here is simple, try something new with your family. You may just be surprised at how much fun you are having staying in shape.

Right about now, you are probably thinking that you know all those things are healthy. Well, then why aren’t we all doing them? We use many excuses. We are too busy, too overcommitted, too tired, no time to cook healthy meals, etc. I challenge these excuses as follows:

Too Busy.
Do you work FULL TIME? If not, there is nobody controlling most of your day, except you. Keep a diary for a couple of days. You will probably be able to find several pockets of time in your day once you do this. If you work, this is a bit harder. You have someone controlling blocks of your time. Review your day. Could you get up earlier, perhaps even a little earlier? Do you have any “flex time” where you could sneak in a bit of cardio? Do you have a favorite TV program that you watch? Do you watch the evening news? Could you watch the news or that program from the cardio area at the gym instead?

Too over-committed.
We all commit to things we do not want to do. Review these things and see if there are things that you do not need to do as well. This is also something you should do with your kid’s schedule. Today, there are more obese kids than there have ever been. Yet, kids are also more over-committed than ever. Are there activities that they do not enjoy? Maybe they could drop those in favor of some outdoor play?

Too tired
When was the last time you saw your doctor? He can rule out any medical reason for being tired. If he has, then look at the other steps first. The body is an amazing machine. If you feed it the right fuel and exercise, you usually have abundant energy.

No time to Cook Healthy Meals
Please! This is not really an excuse. There are so many options here. Try cooking on the weekend and freezing. Try buying precut vegetables and prewashed bags of salad. Pick up a cooked, roasted chicken. Chop up veggies on the weekend and put in a Ziploc bag. They can be thrown in to a stir-fry with precooked chicken, precooked fish (or the leftovers from the roasted chicken above).

As we approach the holiday season, we rely more and more on these excuses as demands on our time get greater and greater. . I want you to be healthy and live a long life. Please find a way to be honest with yourself about your behavior. Once you do that, you can make a plan to keep these excuses at bay.

Many children participating in sports do not receive ANY fluids. They should be encouraged to drink before, during and after exercise. Thirst is not a good indicator for many children, so you should stress that they have fluids. Dizziness from dehydration is a serious symptom. You should seek medical attention if you are dehydrated to this point.

Dehydration can also be a symptom of diabetes so discuss any symptoms of dehydration with your doctor. He can determine if you need further testing. He can also give you information on preventing it again in the future.

For athletes, performance and power are lost when you are dehydrated. This is common sense. Your body is going to put its energy into protecting its vital systems. Marathon runners condition themselves on their fluid requirements because they know their performance is affected.

1) Go to the doctor and get a diagnosis. Once you have this, ask your doctor to help you develop a plan for getting better.

2) Follow the plan. Did your doctor tell you that you would feel better if you took some of the weight load off your back (by losing weight)? Then, do it!

Some general things that can help you feel better (and prevent pain in the first place) :

• Get active. Just like your car doesn’t fix itself in the driveway, your back won’t fix itself when you are in bed!

• Strengthen the muscles that support your back. If you only do crunches, your abs are not properly developed to support your spine. You need to work on your core.

• Consider losing weight if you are overweight. Additional weight on your body causes more stress on all of your muscles and joints as well as your back. You may find that not only does your back pain go away, but also so does your knee pain and your foot pain!

• Drink water. Studies by the Jack M. Blount Foundation found that chronic dehydration is a contributing factor in muscle spasms. It also makes spasms more painful. You know all the other good reasons to drink water, so if you aren’t doing it yet, make it an easy resolution that you can keep!

If there aren’t any facilities, bring along your “emergency workout kit”. This fits in any size suitcase so if you don’t think you have room, consider dropping some of your other items (you don’t need 10 shirts if you are only going away for 5 days.) People who travel regularly are very masterful at cutting down on what they bring. Take a lesson from them. If you always come back from vacation with lots of clean clothes, you are packing too much. Drop some of that weight in favor of things you will use, like workout clothes and your “emergency workout kit”.

Here is what I mean by the “emergency workout kit”. It consists of:
- a yoga mat
- one or two exercise bands
- your workout shoes
With those items, you can perform a very basic routine in any hotel room. (Japanese and European rooms can present a challenge but it is still possible)

The exercises are simple. You can do squats with a press (using your band.) You can do push-ups, walking lunges, tricep dips and all kinds of ab work. Use your imagination, you may just ENJOY IT!

A great personal training routine starts with an analysis of YOU. What are your goals, your medical conditions, your specific weaknesses and strengths.

There is nothing that bothers me more in the gym than someone paying for personal training and not getting professional training. As a consumer, you should demand the following from your personal trainer:

1 – A unique workout to you — If they don’t make one and keep notes on you – they are shortchanging you

2 – A copy of your workout if you want — You should be able to get a written copy so if you need to or decide to “fly solo” for a while, you can.

3 – An analysis of your strengths, weaknesses and goals and a benchmark. This will usually be your weight, but also measurements (if you are comfortable with that), fat analysis and posture and movement analysis. This should also be a medical history. If you have high blood pressure or other chronic condition — IT IS CRITICAL you disclose that. A trainer that does not have you fill out a medical form is not professional. Here is why:

- A person with high blood pressure needs to have their workout adapted. They have a lower maximum heart rate which requires a different measurement than cardio machines provide. They also need to not do isometric exercises.

So really — there are so many great trainers out there and a lot of really “fly by night” ones so use these as guidelines to get the most personal training, results and safety for your money.

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

I see many people at the gym on a daily basis that consider their abs solely as a visual item if they consider training them at all. And while that may be nice, the muscles that make up your abs, your core, are a whole lot more important than just as a source of beauty. Your core consists of 29 muscles that surround your middle like a girdle. Its function is not cosmetic. Its primary function is to provide support and protection for your spine and to hold your body upright and to protect many of your internal organs.

In everyday life, a strong core protects you from those injuries where you can’t believe you just got injured. Like the pinching pain in your back when you got out of the car. Or that constant ache from helping your friend move a sofa. It also protects you from much more serious pain such as a herniated disc or a hernia. And as you age, it also helps you prevent slips and falls which are major causes of life changing injuries for seniors.

In sports, a strong core is critical regardless of your sport. It offers basic protection for sudden move changes such as in tennis and soccer. It also offers stability protection from sudden stops such as a football tackle. It also protects you from twisting and forced twisting movements such as hard tennis serves and golf drives.

But it is not just for protection that you should consider core training for your sport. The body is a finely tuned machine and the core functions in almost every movement. Athletic performance with a weak core is like an automobile with a powerful engine and plugged fuel injectors. You don’t get the most efficient amount of power delivered to perform accurately and quickly. Speed is decreased in many sports when the core is weak. Swimming and sprinting are two examples where there is a significant speed difference when core training is done as part of a regular training routine.

Play a game where throwing is important? Like basketball, baseball, football? Well, a strong core with make you throw farther and more accurately. Play tennis? Have trouble going corner to corner and making sudden changes? Guess what, you can run and run and run for training and never make as much difference on those missed balls as you can make by adding core strength training to your routine. Play golf? Want a longer, more accurate drive? Well training your core is scientifically proven to add dozens of yards to the average golfer’s drive.

The examples of how core training can help your sport are endless and there are dramatic scientific studies regardless of sport. If you are training for a sport and ignore your core, you are setting yourself up for injury. So whether you want to prevent injury or increase performance, core training is really a no-brainer to add to your routine.