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Think you are healthy? Check out the following list of healthy habits and see how you are doing.

Do you smoke?

This is a death nail in your coffin. If you smoke, do everything you can to quit. It makes all other health problems worse!

Do you drink alcohol?

A couple of drinks on occasion with friends may not have long-term effects on most people. If you have other health problems, you should discuss your drinking habits with your doctor as they affect other conditions and medications. An example is diabetes. Alcohol is a NO-GO for diabetics as well as some other conditions.

When was the last time you went to the doctor?

There are MILLIONS of men in the US who have not seen a doctor in more than 10 years. If that is you, go for a check-up. Hypertension and diabetes can cause you lots of problems without being obvious so if it has been a while, go for a visit.

Is you plate colorful and full of a variety of foods?

A healthy diet has lots of variety and lots of natural foods like fruit and vegetables. If you aren’t eating a good variety of veggies EVERY DAY, you should have a hard look at your diet.

Is your workout full of variety?

If your workout is stale or you do the same thing every time, you are not making forward progress. You need to work your body in a variety of ways in order to not stop progress.

Tags: Douglasville, Fitness, Personal Training by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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Being busy, you need to look at doing efficient moves to reduce the amount of time that you spend without sacrificing your workout. Multi functional moves may be your best bet. They make you work hard and they do double duty. Some great moves combine upper and lower body, such as side lunges with lateral raise or squats with a bicep curl. These moves really make you work so you will continue to burn calories at a higher rate than if you split them into separate moves.

Another great time saver is to cut out your rest periods. You need to be careful here! You want to ensure the body part still gets a rest – so you move on to another body part. An example would be doing one set of push-ups (upper body) and then moving right into a set of squats. This way, your upper body is resting while you work your lower body.

Be sure you are lifting enough weight to make a difference. A study by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that participants chose a weight that was only 42 to 57 % of their one-rep maximum. You need to lift more than 70% of your one-rep maximum to gain strength. You want to be efficient, but it is also important to be effective and using heavy weights is the only way to get that done.

Tags: Douglasville, Fitness, Personal Training by David Hansey, Personal Trainer
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I know you think it is hard but fitness, especially weight loss is a matter of numbers. It is math, basic math. Calories in LESS Calories out = Amount of weight gained.

In order to lose weight — you need to reverse the numbers and make a deficit. Best way is to approach that deficit in a multiple of ways. Reduce the calories you are consuming and burn off more.

Getting fit here in Douglasville, especially this time of year, is full of variety. And variety is the best way to ensure you stick to your program. Not only are there lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in season to add to your new eating program. There are also lots of fitness options. Hiking in all our great parks, biking on the silver comet, swimming, rowing — the list of great summer workout options goes ON AND ON. And of course, when it gets really hot and you know it will, the wonderful air conditioning of the gym is the perfect place to ensure you get that workout.

Tags: Douglasville, Fitness, fitness classes, Personal Training, Weight Loss 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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