10 Rules of Life and Lifting

Your thoughts?

WE BUILD STRONGER ATHLETES!

We provide motivated athletes with a simple, customized training plan to help them improve performance and reduce injury risk.

6 Ways to Trim Your Waist

If you want to slim your waistline, you can’t focus on spot training. You will need to increase your fat burning furnace with strength training, cardiovascular activity, and an appropriate diet.  Done in combination, these strategies will help you trim your waist quickly and improve your health.  Fat carried around the waistline increases your risk for serious health issues, including Type 2 diabetes, stroke, and certain cancers.

Here are 6 ways to slim and trim your waist:

1. Have a plan.  Set a fat loss goal for yourself.  In order to shed one pound of fat per week, you will need to burn 500 calories per day.  This can be accomplished through exercise and diet – for example, you could burn 250 calories with exercise and reduce your calorie intake by 250, daily.
2. Get moving.  Engage in vigorous activity. Moderate-to high-intensity activity accelerates the fat/calorie burning process.  Jogging burns almost twice as many calories as walking.  Other good calorie-burning activities include racquetball, jumping rope, and hiking.
3. Try interval training.  If vigorous activity is too aggressive, initially, try interval training.  This approach involves alternating intervals of high- and low-intensity activity.  Begin with a moderate activity, like walking, and incorporate periods of jogging, as tolerated.  Rotate between walking and jogging during your workout, gradually increasing the duration of your high-intensity activity.
4. Lift weights.  Exercise with weights, or some other type of resistance (even body weight), at least twice per week.  Total-body training sessions will benefit all your major muscle groups, and trim your waist in the process.  Incorporate core (planks, leg raises, etc.) and rotational exercises (lateral kettlebell swings, weighted twists) into your training plan.
5. Watch your diet.  Make sure your diet – both quality and quantity – is aligned with your goals.  Keep your daily calories consistent with your ideal/target weight.  Choose nutrient-dense foods that contain fewer calories and allow you to feel satisfied.  Produce and protein are the rule.  Fruits, vegetables, and whole-grains are high in fiber, which take longer to digest.  Keep your dairy low-fat and your protein lean.
6. Eat breakfast, and don’t skip meals.  Avoid sugary, high-carb breakfasts and instead choose protein and whole grains.  Studies show that a protein-rich breakfast like an egg-white omelet will fill your stomach and help to reduce food cravings later in the day.  Eat, but don’t feast, every three to four hours to keep your metabolism running, so your body won’t go into starvation mode and stop burning calories — which is what happens when you don’t eat for extended periods of time.

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Soccer Players, Get in the Weight Room

Volumes of research have established that a well-designed, appropriately supervised strength training program can help any athlete improve his or her performance, regardless of the sport.  A recent study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, examined the effects of a resistance exercise program on soccer kick biomechanics.

The study followed a 10-week resistance exercise program, mainly for the lower-limb muscles.  The training program included progressive high-weight, low-repetition exercises that focused on hip abduction and adduction; knee flexion and extension; and ankle plantar flexion and dorsiflexion.

Results included measurement of leg strength and power through the entire kicking phase — backswing and forward swing — before and after training.

As expected, “maximum and explosive force significantly increased after training…” (Manolopoulos, et. al.)

“These results suggest that increases in soccer kicking performance after a 10-week resistance training program were accompanied by increases in maximum strength and an altered soccer kick movement pattern, characterized by a more explosive backward-forward swinging movement and higher muscle activation during the final kicking phase.”

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

What’s Your Workout Motivation?

Why do you workout?  (and, conversely, why don’t you workout?)

Are you working toward a goal or do you just enjoy the process?

Is it for health and wellness?  Do you want to improve your quality (and quantity) of life?

Do you want to look better, perhaps get more lean and muscular?  (I saw a quote, recently, that said, “Diet if you want to look better in clothes; workout if you want to look better naked.”)

Do you want to feel better?  Are you working out to improve your energy level or functional movement?

Are you trying to lose a few pounds and, perhaps, get closer to your ideal body weight and reduce stress on your joints?

Do you work out with a friend or group of friends and enjoy the social interaction?

Do you want to get stronger, faster, and more athletic?  Is one of your goals to improve your performance?

Are you doing it for you, or for someone else?

The bottom line is, there is no wrong reason — and no one right reason — for working out (they’re all right).  As that shoe company says, “just do it.”

Please tag me back with a comment and share your motivation for working out (or your reason for not working out).  I will compile a list and share the best responses in a future blog post.  Thanks, in advance, for your feedback.

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Train, Don’t Exercise

Exercise and training are different concepts.

Maybe it’s semantics, but when I think of exercise, I think of a static, random activity.

Exercise is a generic activity of varying frequency.  Most people who go to the gym are exercisers (and, although exercise is less of a planned process, it’s undeniably better than nothing at all).

When I think of training, I think of a dynamic, planned, goal-oriented process with a desired result sometime in the future.  Each workout is part of the process, and should bring you one step closer toward your goal or desired result.

Training involves a consistently performed program, designed to improve function and performance at a specific activity.  And, in order to improve performance you need an appropriately-designed program, aligned with your goal(s).

Exercise is often done in response to “need.”  Training is motivated by “want.”

Short- and long-term goal setting is also an integral part of the training process.

Short-term goals provide “checks and balances” to ensure that the process is helping you progress toward your goal, and keep you on track.

Long-term goals provide focus and help keep you engaged.  They are the destination on your training “road map,” and represent accomplishment/achievement.

 Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Lift Weights to Burn More Fat

If you want to get lean, weight training is the way to go, according to a recent University of South Carolina study.

In the study, researchers concluded that weight training may work better than cardio, to burn fat.

Over the course of a year, overweight people who lifted weights lost more body fat than those who ran.

Additionally, the weightlifters experienced an increase in “functional capacity” (the ability to perform everyday tasks), which may have led to a surge in their daily activities and calories burned.

Compound movements – those that engage multiple joints and muscle groups – yield the best return on your exercise investment, as compared to isolation exercises.

Try to get in the weight room 2-3 times a week.  You don’t necessarily have to eliminate your cardio training altogether, but you can train smarter by incorporating more high-intensity interval cardio training and reducing the slow, steady stuff.

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

10 Rules of Life and Lifting

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Join the Train with APTC Premium Workout Group

NOW YOU CAN TRAIN WITH ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE TRAINING CENTER NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE!

We Want To Be Your Coach!

We’ve recently partnered with WeightTraining.com to offer the Train with APTC Premium Workout Group, where we become your virtual strength coach and trainer for less than a dollar a day.

We take over your training, take all the thinking out of your hands, and show you how to follow a well-designed, well-structured, easy-to-follow, LONG-TERM training program.  You will get stronger, feel better, look better, and perform better.

We understand that distance or online training means different things to different people.  We’ll be the first to advocate that IN-PERSON training with a qualified, experienced, professional trainer is ideal (for more about our credentials, experience, and publications, please visit our website).  That being said, we realize that it’s just not logistically reasonable for everyone to train at Athletic Performance Training Center.  Our goal is to make the Train with APTC Premium Workout Group the next best thing to training at our facility.

Here’s What It Is

Our goal for this group is to create a community where we train hard and smart, encourage one another, and have fun doing it.  We want to provide goal-oriented, structured, quality training for those who don’t have access to “good” training or for those who can’t afford to have a trainer work with them individually, and all for less than a dollar a day.

There’s no long-term commitment and you can stay in the group for as long as you’d like.

This is more than just casually following the latest exercise fad or fitness trend.

This is about improving your life and achieving your goals.

Whatever that means, of course, is up to you.  For some, it may be about getting stronger; for others, getting fitter, or improving the way they feel, look, and perform.

But for everyone it’s also about the journey, the performance improvement process, and getting outside your comfort zone.

Here’s What You Need To Do

1. Go HERE and sign-up for the Train with APTC Premium Workout Group on WeightTraining.com, and click on the “Join This Group” button (Note:  If you’re not already a member of the site, you’ll first sign-up for a FREE account.  Don’t worry, it’s easy)
2. From there you’ll create your account by entering the appropriate information (e.g., email address, personal info, password, etc.), and then click “Register”
3. Enter your payment information and click “Complete Purchase”

Additional Information

• Once you sign-up, not only are you an official member of the APTC Premium Workout Group, where you’ll have the opportunity to follow our monthly programming, but you’ll also be given automatic access as a PRO-MEMBER to the entire WeightTraining.com site, which offers a plethora of other programs and tools to use.
• One cool feature is that you’ll be able to organize your workouts as you see fit, according to your own weekly schedule, and WeightTraining.com will send you reminder emails of the days you’re supposed to workout.  (you know, to keep you accountable)  If you want to train on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can set the workout scheduler to that setting.  If that doesn’t work, and you’d prefer other days, you’ll be able to modify the settings.
• For those with an iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTouch, or Android device, you can use the WeightTraining.com App to follow and log your workouts.  (but even if you don’t have an Apple or Android device, you can still print out the worksheets and keep track of your workouts the old-fashioned way)
• Remember, it’s a COMMUNITY. The objective of the group is to train together, encourage one-another, leave comments, be competitive (if that’s your thing), and  have fun!

Are you ready? Click the link below to get started!

Train with APTC Premium Workout Group

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

6 Ways to Trim Your Waist

If you want to slim your waistline, you can’t focus on spot training. You will need to increase your fat burning furnace with strength training, cardiovascular activity, and an appropriate diet.  Done in combination, these strategies will help you trim your waist quickly and improve your health.  Fat carried around the waistline increases your risk for serious health issues, including Type 2 diabetes, stroke, and certain cancers.

Here are 6 ways to slim and trim your waist:

1. Have a plan.  Set a fat loss goal for yourself.  In order to shed one pound of fat per week, you will need to burn 500 calories per day.  This can be accomplished through exercise and diet – for example, you could burn 250 calories with exercise and reduce your calorie intake by 250, daily.
2. Get moving.  Engage in vigorous activity. Moderate-to high-intensity activity accelerates the fat/calorie burning process.  Jogging burns almost twice as many calories as walking.  Other good calorie-burning activities include racquetball, jumping rope, and hiking.
3. Try interval training.  If vigorous activity is too aggressive, initially, try interval training.  This approach involves alternating intervals of high- and low-intensity activity.  Begin with a moderate activity, like walking, and incorporate periods of jogging, as tolerated.  Rotate between walking and jogging during your workout, gradually increasing the duration of your high-intensity activity.
4. Lift weights.  Exercise with weights, or some other type of resistance (even body weight), at least twice per week.  Total-body training sessions will benefit all your major muscle groups, and trim your waist in the process.  Incorporate core (planks, leg raises, etc.) and rotational exercises (lateral kettlebell swings, weighted twists) into your training plan.
5. Watch your diet.  Make sure your diet – both quality and quantity – is aligned with your goals.  Keep your daily calories consistent with your ideal/target weight.  Choose nutrient-dense foods that contain fewer calories and allow you to feel satisfied.  Produce and protein are the rule.  Fruits, vegetables, and whole-grains are high in fiber, which take longer to digest.  Keep your dairy low-fat and your protein lean.
6. Eat breakfast, and don’t skip meals.  Avoid sugary, high-carb breakfasts and instead choose protein and whole grains.  Studies show that a protein-rich breakfast like an egg-white omelet will fill your stomach and help to reduce food cravings later in the day.  Eat, but don’t feast, every three to four hours to keep your metabolism running, so your body won’t go into starvation mode and stop burning calories — which is what happens when you don’t eat for extended periods of time.

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?

Soccer Players, Get in the Weight Room

Volumes of research have established that a well-designed, appropriately supervised strength training program can help any athlete improve his or her performance, regardless of the sport.  A recent study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, examined the effects of a resistance exercise program on soccer kick biomechanics.

The study followed a 10-week resistance exercise program, mainly for the lower limb muscles.  The training program included progressive high-weight, low-repetition exercises that focused on hip abduction and adduction; knee flexion and extension; and ankle plantar flexion and dorsiflexion.

Results included measurement of leg strength and power through the entire kicking phase — backswing and forward swing — before and after training.

As expected, “maximum and explosive force significantly increased after training…” (Manolopoulos, et. al.)

“These results suggest that increases in soccer kicking performance after a 10-week resistance training program were accompanied by increases in maximum strength and an altered soccer kick movement pattern, characterized by a more explosive backward-forward swinging movement and higher muscle activation during the final kicking phase.”

Get STRONGER, Get FASTER!

Your thoughts?