 So, great. You’re working out! Good for you! Now that this has become a regular part of your life (or soon will), you’re probably thinking, “How can I make the most of each workout?”.
Almost everyone feels crunched for time and energy. Next Age Fitness understands so lets be brief. The following list will help you efficiently maximize your workout and get the most from your exercise time:
Ok, so… what about when I’m not working out? Well, good news for you, these principles ring true for all of life. So, grab a glass of water, work out your grocery list, and off to bed with you! Next Age Fitness Staff Resource one Resource two  The bathroom scale can certainly indicate change, but it doesn’t tell you if the change was good or bad. 3D body scanning is an affordable way to track metrics and better understand how food and exercise changes the body over time. Next Age Fitness has the only Fit 3-D Proscanner inside the Atlanta I-285 perimeter. The scanner was originally developed to help see progress, providing motivation to stay true to a successful plan including improvement to health markers, reduce disease (related to food choices) and increase longevity. Staying the course is equally challenging for anyone who has changed their body composition or currently working to improve. Falling back into old habits can be gradual and negative body changes may not be immediate. Regular 3D body scanning can put the brakes on those bad habits and hold you accountable to your fitness goals. The Fit3D Proscanner uses infra-red and depth camera imaginary to extract hundreds of measurements to track progress. In a 35 second scan, you can obtain major measurements, body shape index, wellness risk, body fat% and posture. The avatar gives opportunity to capture the before picture and visually document the journey. The data is securely stored making it easy to track metrics over time. The Fit3D account that is established can be transferred so even if you move, you can scan with the same technology using the same calculations to make it easy to compare to a previous self; and have an intervention with yourself if the metrics start heading south. Being active, exercising intensely using the minimal amount needed for results and eating very clean will produce the best results. If one must prioritize, your time is best spent in preparing nutritionally dense food and eliminating inferring food sources (such as processed food). Meal preparation can be a very big commitment. I know. Someday I might find the extra hours each week to cook nutritionally dense food but in the meantime, I use Fresh N Fit Cuisine. I walk dogs daily, 20 minutes of high intensity strength training each week using ARX equipment and eat chef-prepared gourmet meals. And yes, I am making progress. Schedule your scan today. Stay Strong, Tammy Enjoy a 10% discount at Fresh N Fit Cuisine by using code: NAF10 More information on Body composition: Importance of Body composition Feasible Body Composition Tests in Atlanta If you pay attention to news and studies focused on nutrition you already know that sugar in all its forms should be a tiny portion of your diet. The answer for many of us is to use sugar substitutes. I love coffee...but think it's best with cream (or butter) and sweetener. If I have to give up one of those, I'd rather it be the cream.
There are several options if you want to use artificial sweeteners but many are felt to have harmful side effects. For many of us that spent a bit of time on the Atkins diet the go-to sweetener was Splenda (sucralose). Dr. Atkins felt that this was the safest of the artificial options. The bad news? A recent study looked at the effects of sucralose at a cellular level and the results of this study indicate that consuming artificial sweetener actually promotes fat accumulation! I don't really use this to lose weight specifically but rather to avoid some of the negative consequences of consuming sugar - blood sugar spike and crash and false hunger, but I certainly don't want using sucralose to make me fatter! I'm not sure I'll change my ways with this new knowledge...but it has made me think twice before ripping open another packet. Scot  Eccentric doesn’t just refer to the strange guy down the street or wearing weird clothes while working out…it also applies to a specific motion in exercise.
I was recently looking for some scholarly research around strength training to see what the latest and greatest information is around frequency and intensity and found a study that compared eccentric to concentric strength training. That would be resisting while the muscle is lengthening vs. contracting. Back in the day, when I was weight training a lot, a negative (eccentric) was something we’d frequently add in at the end of the last set for a particular muscle group but not every workout. The reasons for that in my mind were that it was difficult to do – it absolutely required a spotter to take the weight from you at the end of the repetition, so it stood to reason that you wouldn’t want to do a whole set of negatives or you’d wear out your spotter. It was also felt to be an excellent way to bust a plateau or get that extra little bit out of a workout. Most people are far stronger in the eccentric motion. To do an effective negative with conventional weights requires a weight you could not lift in the positive direction. So we’d do it when we had already fatigued our muscles in the positive/concentric motion. You had to have a spotter (or more than one) for most exercises, and to be safe, that spotter had to be “on it” during that repetition. So what did the study conclude? The eccentric motion is more effective at making the muscles get stronger and also superior at making tendons thicker. You can read the study here. Indeed, if you read the discussion section of the study they make it clear that the benefits of eccentric training extend beyond just strength and tendon thickness. I am babbling on about this because our ARX machines give you a safe way right here in Atlanta to work your muscles at maximum effort in both concentric and eccentric. That is the secret to the 20 minutes once a week. Give it a try and see for yourself – schedule here. Scot  Testing for body composition is easily available in Atlanta. Next Age Fitness has the only Fit3D Proscanner inside the 285 perimeter that not only gives body fat information, but also tracks major body measurements and provides a visual avatar that serves well for motivation. Though tracking with a gold standard method, it is currently gathering more data before releasing it from beta. I personally find it a good way to keep in line.
As long as you understand that ALL body composition results (from all methods) are based on a calculation and the only accurate result is done at the cadaver stage; then you will understand that it is not the number to focus on but the direction of the number. So in my opinion, multiple tests over time would be helpful to determine if your food and exercise routine is working as you had planned. So, for me, I’m fine with a calculation; it’s better than nothing and who wants to wait until that cadaver stage anyway! So let’s talk Gold Standards and my experience/research of them. There are two gold standards: Hydrostatic and DEXA (Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry): Hydrostatic: I’ve done hydrostatic several times. Though I like the data (lean mass & fat mass), it is a test I have difficulty even thinking about doing more than once a quarter. The tests I’ve taken required swimming pool attire, getting into a tub of warm water and going down upon my knees. Facing down to the water, I am asked to put a weight on my back and emerge myself into the water while forcefully expelling all the air I could out of my lungs. Sounds simple. I just wasn’t that good at it. Therefore, I had to repeat it two more times. To me, it wasn’t easy. I loved the data it gave me, but felt it was a bit like drowning so not something I could reasonably expect to do every month. I had a hard time convincing myself to do it even quarterly. So the feedback loop became too long to make changes the would help my fitness goals. DEXA scan: I have not yet done a DEXA scan, but I plan on doing it someday. DEXA scans measure a body’s absorbance of x-rays at two different energies. Fat, bone mineral and fat free soft tissue have different absorption properties, so the scan can estimate the body composition. It has the advantage of being able to provide bone density estimates and regional estimates of body composition. Sounds like great data to me. I personally shy away from any unnecessary radiation so I haven’t yet done the test. Because of my concerns, it would be unlikely that I could do it often enough to help me change my behavior. Data is intriguing to me. Since human biology is not as simple as calories in and calories out, having information available to determine progress is valuable to me. If you want data without the drowning (or feeling like it) and without radiation, check out Next Age Fitness. The 3d body scan uses infrared and depth camera imagery to gather data and deliver body measurements, health trends and body fat calculations. Schedule a scan today! Stay Strong, Tammy More information on Body composition: Importance of Body composition |
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