Athlekinetix Blog

Michelle Obama’s arms have taken on a life of their own. If Michelle Obama’s arms were a cat, they would be well beyond their ninth life by now. Even the rich and famous are coveting them. Since losing 75 pounds as the spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Kirstie Alley has gained back a startling 85 pounds. Last week, in an interview with Oprah, Kirstie Alley confessed what she really wants is Michelle Obama’s arms. Who doesn’t apparently?

What is so fascinating about Michelle Obama is she is not the stereotypical face of beauty that bombards us on runways and glamour magazines. She is fit and strong, but she is not a size 00. Nor will she ever be. Michelle Obama has shown the world that beauty is about showcasing your strengths and assets. She owns her body and wears it proudly. Michelle Obama’s confidence and comfort in her own skin is her true beauty.

The fact that Michelle Obama is famous around the world for her arms is also telling about fitness. Sculpted arms, especially on women, announce to the world that you are someone who exercises and takes care of your body. Legs, abs, and butt are important too, but toned arms get noticed immediately.

For those of you who also want Michelle Obama’s arms, here are a few things to keep in mind.
First, even if you are the First Lady of The United States, you have to work hard to have killer arms. They do not happen magically or appear overnight. Second, good arms are not just strong biceps. Amazingly toned arms are a result of intense total upper body strength conditioning. Triceps, shoulders, lats, and core are equally important to target in your resistance training program. 

For me, the single best exercise you can do for your arms is push-ups. Push-ups are the most efficient, comprehensive upper body exercise that exists for serious arm strength and definition. Abs are engaged the entire time and your shoulders, chest, and arms are majorly worked.  The variety of push-ups that you can do is mind numbing. Military push-ups, stagger push-ups, incline/decline push-ups, tricep push-ups, traveling push-ups, and push-ups on both sides of the BOSU ball are just some of the push-up exercises you can and should incorporate into your daily fitness program.

The best part of push-ups is they are so intense that a little goes a long way. Start out slowly and build. Before you know it, you will be able to do 50 push-ups without stopping. Your toned arms will make even Michelle Obama stop and take notice.

After spending the last 25 years dedicating my career to health and fitness, I of all people know that losing weight and getting fit are not easy endeavors. Unfortunately, there is no magic pill or secret formula that is going to transform your body. Eating a well-balanced diet with emphasis on fruits and vegetables combined with daily exercise is the prescription for good health and a toned physique.

For the most part I follow this lifestyle religiously, give or take a good hot fudge sundae. But, I am no different than anyone else. The minute an alternative exists which will allow me to be a couch potato stuffing my face with nachos while maintaining a lean and sculpted body, I will be first in line. Yesterday, I got a preview into the world of ‘the quick fix’ and I have to tell you it didn’t suck!

Even though my forehead is permanently scrunched and wrinkled like a sharpei dog and the space in between my eyes makes me look like I’m pissed off all the time, I was a hold-out in the world of Botox for the longest time. You can now call me a convert!

It is said that beauty is the last thing to go in a bad economy. Not that I’m vain usually, but wow was this worth the money. Botox isn’t cheap, but it is worth scrimping for once or twice a year in my book. In less than 5 minutes and no pain, I took 10 years off my face. I’ve received compliments all day from unknowing acquaintances telling me how refreshed I look. This sure beats the usual, “Are you mad about something?”

If only getting a smaller butt was as quick and easy! I have found that the best part of getting Botox is I have created a red herring. By focusing attention on my wrinkle-free, youthful face; people aren’t even noticing the size of my butt! That’s money well spent if you ask me.

Erin

After 9/11, Kanye West on an all-star television benefit to help raise money for families who lost loved ones in the tragedy, got on national TV and surprised everyone with his unscripted proclamation that “George Bush hates Black people.” I’m beginning to think we as a nation don’t like fat people either.

Ryanair Airlines, a low-budget Irish airline just announced that overweight passengers will have to pay by the pound to fly. Ouch! Don’t get cocky that we, in this country, are more sensitive to the plight of the obese. United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, to name a few, recently have required overweight passengers to buy an additional seat if they want to be permitted on the flight. There is an actual policy which defines ‘being too overweight to fly.’  “A passenger must fit in a single seat with armrests down and/or require only one seat belt extender.” Seriously?

Has it really come to this? Are we as a nation so fat that airline policy has to specify “more than one seat belt extender?” Isn’t the fact that such a thing exists as a seat belt extender troubling enough. But, now you find yourself dancing the hora in the aisle if you are fat enough to only require one seat belt extender, not the dreaded two.

I have to admit that I’m a little confused. The last time I flew I could barely fit my purse underneath the seat in front of me and I felt incestuously close to my relatively slim seat mate who happened to be a stranger. I’m still stuck on the notion of two seat belt extenders. Houston we really do have a problem!

Now, I’m not one to blame all of the world’s ills on fat people; skinny people do more than their share of screwing up. Just this past Earth Day, when overweight and obese people were basically blamed for causing global warming, even I thought this was harsh and far reaching.

Except now when the Association for Airline Passenger Rights comes out blasting airlines for discriminating against fat people, I take pause. Let’s consider for a moment my new favorite airline policy of weighing luggage. Is anybody’s luggage ever the right weight? No, this is a sneaky way for airlines to get away with an additional fee to check your bags. If my luggage, whether or not is stuffed like a sausage, gets charged up to 50 bucks extra, is it really a stretch to charge people for the extra baggage they are carrying on their butts?

Forgive me for sounding callous, but there are several realities to this scenario that trump being politically correct. First, fuel expenditure and airplane safety are dependent on the excess weight that the plane is having to support. If airlines raise the already exorbitant cost of flying to match the increased girth of the passengers, this is not right either. I exercise regularly and eat right. I forgo the need for even one seat belt extender, let alone two. Why should I have to get a second mortgage on my home in order to fly? This isn’t being discriminatory, it’s being frank.

Secondly, there is no such thing as a short airplane flight. Even when the flight is supposed to last less than an hour, it is always a lengthy ordeal. Throw in layovers and cross-country travel and you are looking at hours cramped in a confining space with strangers. If you are so large that you require two seat belt extenders and your arm rest has to stay permanently in the up position, you are guaranteed sitting at least one butt cheek on my lap. The only difference between then and now is you were getting away with it for free. This is not being discriminatory, this is being real.

Couple this with the Swine Flu mania and I am not a happy camper. I think planes are cesspools of germs in the best of times. But, when there is a genuine flu epidemic sweeping the world, I for sure don’t want to be spooning with a stranger, fat or not on the airplane. Seats on the plane are designed to be individual seats, not love seats. Wanting your own seat on a plane is not being selfish for comfort reasons, it is being prudent against the spread of disease.

The final reason this airplane policy of requiring obese people to purchase an additional seat does not  offend me is because it is illustrative of a much bigger issue at play. This isn’t about passengers’ rights to fly. It is about how jaded we have become as a society as to what is acceptable when it comes to weight. The bottom line is this. It is not ok for your health to be so fat that you can’t fit on an airplane properly. This is not being discriminatory, it’s saving your life. By feeling the punch in your wallet, you are hopefully feeling the punch in your gut to get healthy. Forget about flying and double seat belt extensions. Living is of much greater import than the cost of any airplane seats.

Gyms are full of experts. Some are paid professionals like personal trainers that actually have to pass a grueling exam in order to be accredited and then continue to keep their certifications current with  continuing education classes. You would think these are the people that would hold the “weight” in the weight room when it comes to fitness advice. Unfortunately, weight rooms in gyms are the one place in particular that expert advice is most often given not by experts but rather by people who think they are experts.

The ‘know it alls’ are the most dangerous types of experts in my opinion. And perhaps the most interesting thing about them is they are the first and loudest to dispense of advice to anyone that will listen. What I particularly like about the ‘know it alls’ is that no subject when it comes to fitness is out of their range of expertise. Weight loss, nutritional supplements, vitamins, periodization, and weight lifting of course are all within their domain.

It makes me cringe when I hear these personal trainer wannabes in action because the people they are talking to are hanging onto every word. There are several problems with taking fitness advice from people who are not trained in fitness. Besides the fact that your body will not yield better results because you followed this advice, the biggest problem people face is they are opening themselves to injury. Just because Joe the Expert has big guns, doesn’t mean Joe has any idea about proper form or what exercises are best for you given your physical limitations and abilities.

In fact, most often in weight rooms, the people with the biggest muscles have the worst form. Is it really worth injury to expose your vulnerabilities to these people? Bad advice even occurs from the well-intentioned exercisers at times. Just the other day, a person who has been a regular hard core exerciser for the past 25 years gave what she believed to be innocent advice to someone about an exciting new exercise she recently discovered and has had positive results with.  This well-intentioned exerciser simply wanted to share the exercise with someone else that was interested in adding it to  their exercise routine. Even though this avid exerciser had done this exercise herself at least 100 times, she had apparently been doing it 100 times incorrectly. By then demonstrating this incorrect form to someone else, she was inadvertently passing bad advice on like a bad chain letter that keeps going and going. The point is the intention doesn’t matter. Bad fitness advice equals bad form and bad form equals injury.

The other problem with being the master fitness expert is that what works for you might not work for somebody else. It is just like with diets. Some people lose weight on a high protein diet whereas others lose weight on a strict vegan diet. Fitness is not one size fits all. By pretending to have the magic formula for building muscle mass, losing weight, or toning problem areas, these pseudo trainers are setting people up for disappointment and failure.

The best advice for when you are at the gym is to pay attention to your surroundings. Notice other people’s bodies and workout routines and use that as fuel for what you want to look like and what you plan on doing to achieve it. But, instead of using these people as role models and experts, go to a real fitness expert and make an exercise plan that is right for you. A personal trainer can tailor a program specifically to meet your needs and goals while at the same time showing you how to properly use the weight equipment and maintain good form in order to prevent injury.

A ‘know it all’ in the gym might be fun to share a protein shake with, but that’s about all.

A newly released Scottish study found that just three minutes a day of exercise can significantly improve your health. Huh? I’m not one to be left speechless often, but this new finding defies explanation. First we hear the recommended guidelines for maintaining good health are 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week of moderate exercise. Then, the National Registry for Weight-loss revealed that most people who have lost weight and kept it off for two years or more exercise at least 5 days a week of vigorous exercise for an hour a day. My personal favorite recommendation for how long we should exercise came from running experts who coined “90 is the new 60.”

I exercise 7 days a week for 2 hours a day. Now I know that is not typical and not realistic for most people. However, I’m more ‘more is more’ rather than the ‘less is more ‘ if I were to be completely honest with you. I think that exercise should be intense, full of variety, and done for at least 45 minutes to an hour a day. Every day. I never quite understood the so-called fitness experts who recommend taking the weekend off or every other day in between working out. First of all, exercise is a habit. If you do not foster and nurture this habit, it will become a choice. And I ask you, if you were given the choice to workout or not, which choice would you make?

The other reason I believe in exercising every day is the weekends are the time when food and alcohol consumption are at their highest. This is the time, if there ever was one, to step up the exercise. Even though I am of the ‘more is more’ philosophy, I am by no means insane when it comes to exercise. People who work out 3-4 hours a day are not only in need of a head check, but are actually doing their body harm by overexercising. I am a moderate ‘more is more’ type of woman. But, if this study was to be believed that 3 minutes a day of exercise is all we need to see results, then I am in LaLa Land. This isn’t even ‘less is more.’  Maybe it is ‘anything is better than nothing.’

In the Scottish study, adults who did six 30 second sprints on the exercise bike with rests in between for a total of 3 minutes, “improved their body’s ability to metabolize blood sugar by 25% after six sessios.” As of this weren’t unbelieveable enough, they also lowered their risks of diabetes and heart disease. Interesting.

The good news about this is I will never have to hear from people again the ubiqitous excuse of  “I just don’t have time to exercise.” Hogwash to that now! I challenge anyone to say they can’t spare three minutes of their day to improving their health.

I am not swayed by the findings of the 3 minute rule enough to practice it in my life anytime soon. However, if you are currently doing nothing and are inspired by the 3 minute a day rule of exercise, by all means put on your sneakers immediately.

If you truly only have 3 minutes a day to exercise, I think push-ups, squats, and planks make for a good 3 minute trio. They work major muscle groups simultaneously, require no equipment other than your own body weight, and are effective in small doses. For 3 minutes, do 10 push-ups, 20 squats, and a 30 second plank on your elbows. Rest for 30 seconds and repeat the series for a total of 3 minutes. As you get stronger, lessen the rest time in between sets.

Perhaps the best result of this study is that exercise, even in the smallest of quantities makes a difference to your overall health. If 3 minutes does every thing this study says it does, then imagine the benefits to your health and body, if you were to exercise intensely an hour a day.

The current economy is affecting everybody, but one industry that’s especially taking it in the shorts is personal fitness training. If you want to be physically challenged, motivated to achieve, and successfully attain your fitness goals, there is probably no better investment than a personal trainer. The problem today, however, is that people are debating whether even a gym membership is necessary, let alone the high cost of a personal trainer.

Gyms and personal trainers might be a luxury in this economic downturn, but exercise is always a necessity no matter what. The only piece of equipment necessary in order to exercise is a good pair of sneakers. That said, if you can afford more and you want to invest in your body rather than another pair of designer shoes, a personal trainer can be worth his or her weight in gold. The onus is on you, though, as a consumer to pick the right personal trainer for you or change personal trainers if your fitness goals are not being met.

The most important part of choosing a personal trainer happens before any contract is signed and money paid. There is an old cliché that before you work out in a gym, walk around and see the different bodies of the people working out and work out where they are. Because they are obviously doing something right! The same goes for personal trainers. Be a spy in the weight room for a couple of weeks before committing to a personal trainer. Pay close attention to how trainers train their clients. Talk to people who use personal trainers and get feedback about what they like and what they wish was different about the personal trainer they work with. This is no different than a dating relationship. You are doing your homework to see if the trainer is worth a “first date.”

For example, you wouldn’t go to a new hairdresser if you didn’t like the way she did people’s hair. When you are looking at the way personal trainers train, ask yourself the following questions. Are the exercises the trainer is having the client do creative and innovative? If you are already familiar with and doing these exercises on your own before you even start exercising with a personal trainer, than that personal trainer will be of no value to you. A good personal trainer should change the exercise routine every time they train. The exercises should not be predictable because they have done the same ones in the same order each time. In addition, the routine should not be able to be easily duplicated by you at home or in the gym, or else that trainer is unnecessary in your fitness plan.

Does the personal trainer you are interested in working with pay attention to his clients? When other members walk by, does he stop training his client and talk to other people? For the entire hour you are training, the attention of the personal trainer needs to be entirely on your exercise program. There shouldn’t be cell phone conversations or in-depth conversations with anyone, not even with the people being trained. A good personal training relationship is rooted in helping you achieve your personal fitness goals. Anything that takes away from that is a negative in the relationship.

The point is these are questions that can be answered through personal observation and asking around well before you plunk down the big bucks for a personal trainer. It is important to remember even once you have hired a personal trainer that they can and should be replaced if they are not fulfilling their end of the bargain. Personal trainers, if they are the right personal trainers for you, can make all the difference in the world to enhancing your level of fitness and transforming your body. If you do your due diligence in hiring, the benefits of exercising under the guidance of a personal trainer can be life changing. Your body is worth much more than a new outfit.

It used to be the reflection of an intense workout was a high heart rate, muscle fatigue, and even puddles of sweat. Those were the good old days. Today, the presence of buckets to throw up in is the sign of a hard core workout.  If you are eating while reading this, no need for alarm. You see, there is no actual barfing that takes place in these buckets. They are just for show.

The famous P90X that everyone is touting as being the poster child for intensity, has buckets waiting by on the set just in case you can’t quite keep your cookies down while doing the exercise routine. Apparently, it is irrelevant to the brains behind P90X that the buckets are actually located on your TV screen and won’t come in handy in times of need. Along these lines, it must also be irrelevant to the bigwigs at P90X that if you at home are working out so hard that you need to puke, there is something seriously wrong.

What’s even more bothersome with the proverbial bucket is the fact that it is beginning to show up everywhere. A local fitness celebrity holds an outdoor fitness challenge every week that is supposedly so intense that you have to qualify to be able to participate. Of course, intensity in the actual exercises wouldn’t be enough. Buckets have to line the obstacle course as well, just in case you forgot you were doing an intense workout. This gimmick has gotten so obnoxious, that even group exercise classes in local gyms aren’t immune. Recently, a class was held that promised to be an hour filled with power so intense that only a lucky few would be able to complete it. I was highly doubtful about that, but I surely wasn’t doubtful about whether buckets would be involved.  Unfortuately, I’m not a betting woman, because I would have made some serious cash on that one.

Oprah Winfry, with the Chris Brown/Rhianna mess, said publicly many times that love is not supposed to hurt. Guess what? Either does exercise. Exercise is not supposed to make you physically sick, no matter how intense the workout or class supposedly is.  I’m not talking no pain, no gain. Yes, lactic acid burn can be uncomfortable. Yes, muscles that are worked to fatigue the day before can be sore the next day. But, this “bucket” phenomenon is nonsensical at best and patronizing at worst.

If you feel like you are about to hurl while working out, it is not a testament to the strength of the exercise program, it is a sign that you are doing something wrong. Buckets are the rage today. What’s next, ambulance stretchers?

Have you or someone you loved ever boasted about  a feat of athletic prowess such as ‘I can run a 7 minute mile’ even if the last time they ran a 7 minute mile was 20 years ago. Ex high school and college athletes are particularly guilty of speaking this way while resting a plate of nachos on their expanding beer bellies. It is sort of like someone who was obese and then went on to lose a tremendous amount of weight, but still looks at themselves in the mirror and sees a fat person staring back. The perceived reality is often quite different from actuality. It is an interesting phenomenon with competitive athletes, in particular, that they always consider themselves one step away from being able to reclaim their physical achievements of the past, even if they never exercised a day since then.

What is so fascinating about this way of thinking, however, is that there is some hidden truth to this. This past weekend Coach Raphael Lima of Midtown Weston Aquatics swam the Miami Open Mile. Basically, this is a mile long swim in the ocean instead of a pool. Why this is noteworthy is he came in second out of over 1000 swimmers and was only 30 seconds shy of coming in first place and beating Gary Hall Jr., a 3 time Olympian and gold medal swimmer.

Raphael, at the peak of his swimming career, was the 7th fastest sprinter in the world and is the current Brazilian world record holder for the 4×100 relay. With this resume, why would I be surprised he almost finished first this past weekend against an Olympian? The truth is Raphael is 28 years old and is not in any way close to being in the shape he was at the height of his swimming career.  In fact, he hasn’t trained seriously in a pool for years. Gary Hall, who won the Miami Open Mile, just this past Olympics in Beijing, was a finalist in the Olympic Trials. Raphael’s recent swimming has consisted of 2 or 3 times a week with adult swimmers who are swimming for recreational exercise. In addition, Raphael has never swam in the ocean before and is not a long distance swimmer. What makes his achievement even more remarkable is he was wearing a “drag suit” which adds extra resistance in the water. He thought he was going to swim this just for fun.

Something happened, though, the second the buzzer went off. The competitive athlete in him that he thought was long ago retired resurfaced in all its glory. All of a sudden, a champion swimmer emerged in the water determined to win gold.

Anyone can be an athlete, if they train like an athlete. And anyone who used to be an athlete can become one again. Raphael’s minor victory in the ocean was a major victory in his mind. He proved to himself that he still has what it takes to win. Better yet, so does everybody who has ever dedicated years of discipline and training to their sport. All Raphael could think at the conclusion of the race was ‘Wow, imagine if I actually started training again.’

If you were an athlete in your past, take this opportunity to wake up the athlete you used to be. Be careful to not expect to be at the top of your game after a very long hiatus. But, instead realize that the athlete you once were never abandoned you. Your body may look and feel different today, but that competitive spirit that once drove your success can be reignited. Look at Dara Torres if you need extra inspiration, a 41 year old Olympic silver medalist with a baby. Train your body as the athlete you once were, and that athlete will re-emerge before your eyes.

What does Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish and now chart-topping solo country artist, know about fitness? More than you realize. When their album Cracked Rear View dropped in 1994, it was deemed an overnight sensation and went on to become the 12th best-selling album in music business history.

There are several things interesting about this. First, what the world thought of as ‘overnight success’ and the reality behind the success of the album were quite different. Hootie and the Blowfish had been working day and night for 10 years prior to the release of the album at any gig they could in order to play their music, get heard by as many people as possible, and try to make a dime to cover their expenses. This same principle applies to fitness. When people see someone who has lost weight or transformed their body, it is assumed that it happened overnight. What people were not privy to, however, were the hours of sweat and nutritional discipline required daily to make lasting change possible. Hootie and the Blowfish knew that one day they would be successful because they worked diligently to make that happen. Darius Rucker was interviewed and said, “We just believed in our music.” What they were doing for the previous decade before they struck it big was build the foundation for success one day at a time.

The same goes for your body. Change does not happen instantly. But, if you make the choice every day to lead a healthy life and eat right most of the time and exercise hard most of the time, your body will change. Guaranteed. If you believe in your body, like Hootie and the Blowfish believed in their music, you will be the next overnight sensation.

One of the interesting things that made Hootie and the Blowfish unique was it was a combination of pop, blues, folk, soul, and rock. The diversity of the music made it ‘hard to pigeonhole’ and appealed to a wide demographic as a result. Your exercise program should reflect this same principle. If you are a one trick pony, you better throw in some rock and roll and even a little rap once in a while if you want your body to look different tomorrow than it does today. If people around you can pigeonhole you as a runner, spinner, or weightlifter, you are in danger of being in a fitness rut. Keep your workouts unpredictable and shake things up and you will achieve your fitness goals.

Darius Rucker, after Hootie and the Blowfish, expanded his wings as a solo artist and tipped his hat in R&B. This was met with a lukewarm reception from his fans and his debut album bombed. This too will happen to you from time to time in your fitness endeavors. How many competitive athletes go from being phenomenally fit and at the top of their game and then struggle with weight issues when they retire? Hopefully, Charles Barkley you are reading this right now. Or, if you trained intensely to run a marathon and did all you hoped to do and more, but then never ran another mile in your life, Hootie speaks to you too. It is hard losing weight and keeping it off or being at your athletic best and staying on top. Just like Darius Rucker, you will bomb at some point and want to give up.

Darius Rucker didn’t give up and either will you. In 2008, he transformed himself again into a country singer. His first solo chart single “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” went on to become the first number one country hit by an African American artist since 1983. Get out of your comfort zone, try something different with your exercise routine, and set new goals for yourself to train for and achieve. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If your mind and body crave a change, do yourself a favor and change the way you eat and exercise.

I couldn’t have made up the existence of the Lingerie Football League if I tried. The fact that the kickoff of the Lingerie Football League fall season was featured on the front page of the Money section of the Sun Sentinel and is expected to have a sell-out crowd in the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise is downright frightening to me on many levels.

First let me quote you exactly what we are dealing with here. I’ll give you a hint. It has as much to do with football as Kentucky Fried Chicken has to do with chicken. “Seven-woman teams will play each other clad in bikini tops, short shorts, and helmets.” Are we sure we’re not talking about Hooters? With team names like Chicago Bliss, this is a football game where poles should replace footballs.

The people that fought tooth and nail for the enactment of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex for activities, namely sports have to be disgusted by this. The impact of Title IX with girls being able to participate fully in high school and collegiate sports programs has permanently changed the face of athletic departments in this country. Our girls are being raised to know they have the same opportunities as boys to excel in competitive sports and to be fully recognized as female athletes. Then something as demeaning as this comes along.

Fans pay up to $85 a game and fill up an arena that U2 sells out in. It is a 20 week season based on major financial gain. I’m going to go out on a limb on this one and assume these games aren’t intended for men to ‘bring the whole family.’ This means this will be a predominantly male-only crowd cheering wildly for nearly naked women. Sound familiar?

What bothers me most is the charade of this being a football game. Call a spade a spade. Women tackling each other, scantily clad, in front of thousands of screaming horny men doesn’t sound like Monday Night Football to me.

Women have fought long and hard in this country to be viewed as smart, athletic, and qualified as men. Shame on the men who waste their time and money to see glorified porn on the football field and shame on the women ”athletes” of Lingerie Football. For real female athletes who have dedicated their lives to their sport, this is a slap in the face.

It’s interesting that the article about Lingerie Football was in the Money section and not the Sports section of the newspaper. The Sports editors probably saw this and had trouble with the ‘football’ part of Lingerie Football. Surely we’re smart enough to see this is a step backward not only for female athletes, but for the strides women have made and will continue to make in order to be treated fairly in this country.