I talk to a lot of people that either aren’t experienced exercisers or spend their time in the gym doing “cardio” or “machines”. When I talk to them, I always try to see things as they see them. This is never more evident then when I use the term “resistance training”. About this time in the conversation I usually see a bit of fear in their eyes as they picture a long barbell with a bunch of weight on each side getting thrown around by a massive, screaming bodybuilder. What I then explain to them is that resistance training can always be made easier or harder depending on the person’s physical condition. Actually, many times we use no external weight at all. We just do simple bodyweight exercises.
While I could talk about how to program resistance training for different people, what I really want to talk about today is it’s importance and how it fits in with everyone’s goals and situation.
Resistance training for fat loss: For long-term fat loss what we are really looking to do is speed up the body’s metabolism permanently. Since lean body burns more calories then fat we must increase it to raise our metabolism, therefore raising the amount of calories we burn each day. Doing the 30-45 minutes of cardio that most people do actually has the long-term effect of lowering metabolism, making it progressively harder and harder to lose the weight we want to lose.
Resistance training for endurance athletes: Every time a runner’s foot hits the ground they need to produce a certain amount of force to propel themselves forward. Doesn’t it make sense that if they get stronger they could produce more force, thereby making themselves a faster and more efficient athlete?
Resistance training for older people: After the age of 40 we lose about 10% of our muscle mass each decade. With this comes an decrease in bone density, particularly in women, an increase in fat and a general decline in health and well-being. This doesn’t have to be the case and this process can be slowed, stopped or even reversed by resistance training. Don’t we all know someone who experienced what seemed to be a minor fall and yet suffered major injuries? A lack of bone density and general strength is the culprit.
Resistance training for injury prevention: Our muscles and bones aren’t the only recipients of resistance training’s benefits. As our muscles get stronger our ligaments and tendons do as well. This means that whether we suffer an accident, run a marathon or just want to pick up your grandchild, every part of our body is better equipped to handle the stress of the event.
If you have any questions about how to properly incorporate resistance training into your life, please drop me a line.
Mitchell Rothbardt, CPT ACE
Mitch Rothbardt Fitness
510-754-7113
http://MitchRothbardtFitness.com/
Discover Your Strength!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
This Saturday!
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
They're All Lying To You
They’re lying to you, you know. That’s right. They’re all lying to you. A quick search on Google turned up 162,000,000 hits for the term “weight loss”. That’s not an exaggeration. With that amount of information out there it’s not hard to understand why people have so difficult a time knowing what to do.
A couple of months ago Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore made headlines when they twittered that they were going on a maple syrup, lemon water and cayenne pepper diet “for health reasons”. Gwyneth Paltrow’s personal trainer Tracy Anderson appears on multiple TV shows exclaiming that women should never lift more than three pounds. “The Biggest Loser” tells everyone that losing two pounds a week is a low number. Turn on your TV on a Saturday afternoon and you don’t have to go far to find an infomercial telling you that the new ab-roller/coaster/rocker can help you lose 25 pounds in two months if you use it for only 15 minutes three times a week. They’re all lying to you.
The weight loss industry is multi-billion dollar-a-year business. That’s billion with a “b”. There are diets that tell you to eat no carbs. Diets that tell you to eat no fat. Diets that tell you to eat whatever you want as long as you have this special pill first. There are exercise books that tell you to do hours of cardio and abs. Think about it. Does any of this really make sense?
Have you noticed that on every weight loss pill bottle the label says something like, “Our studies have shown that if you take two of these pills a day along with proper diet and exercise you will lose weight.” Really? You mean that proper diet and exercise don’t do anything without your magic pill that costs $79.95?
They’re all lying to you.
We know that obesity rates are skyrocketing. We know that this stuff is now being passed on to our kids. How can this be when a quick search can give me 162,000,000 pieces of advice? It’s because so much of this information is just out there to promote someone’s book or someone’s TV show or sell a pill.
How do you know what to listen to? You’re in luck. On Saturday September 18th at the Inner Athlete in San Leandro I am going to be giving a free fat loss seminar at 1:00 pm. I am going to talk about these lies and tell you what the real truths are behind fat loss and how you can figure out the difference. The Inner Athlete is located at 377 Macarthur in San Leandro. Please call me at 510-754-7113 or email me at MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com if you have any questions, or just show up. It’s free and I hope we can help help a lot of people. Have a great week and I hope to see you there!
Mitchell Rothbardt, CPT ACE
Mitch Rothbardt Fitness 510-754-7113
http://MitchRothbardtFitness.com/
Discover Your Strength!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Area Fitness Professionals: Paul Southern
Hello, everyone. For my next few articles I’m going to introduce you to a few people in the area and talk about their approaches to exercise and general well being.Today we’ll talk to Paul Southern. Paul owns Re-Active/CrossFit Pleasanton. He started as a coach 12 years ago after leaving the Marine Corps where he was a Fleet Marine Force Corpsman. He started coaching people in his garage and has since expanded to a 5,000 square foot coaching facility in Pleasanton.
Mitch: Talk about your fitness philosophy.
Paul: Someone that works out and strives to eat nutrient dense food has made a decision that the good life is something that we create for ourselves. Fitness leads to a healthier body and most importantly a healthy mind. If there is turmoil and dysfunction there, a person will be unhappy. I encourage people to start going in the right direction. Eat well and workout to make the mind and body healthy. It’s a decision about how you want to live.
Mitch: Talk about your gym, your coaches and the different things you offer.
Paul: I have always believed in the power to change my circumstances. In order to do this, everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves. Re-Active gym is about creating a place and a community that is trying to move in the right direction.
CrossFit is a group training program that aims to develop every aspect of an athlete, and we are all athletes: from our 8 year olds to our 73 year olds. We also work with athletic teams. Their coaches will work on their sport’s specific techniques but we want to make sure they can move right and are strong and conditioned. Our private training is for people that have specific goals or special needs that require them to work with a private trainer.
I am constantly bombarded with applications for coaches. There are plenty of mediocre “trainers”. I’m looking for the best of the committed coaches. The first requirements are integrity and attitude and then we look at a coach’s skills. Just like the clients they work with, a coach in my facility is always growing and improving their skill level. For example, Jesse Burdick was presenting at a conference in L.A. and I asked if he would like to come work for me. Harry Selkow is a coach and writer for EliteFTS (a top website on strength and conditioning). He moved to Pleasanton to be part of the team. Dan King was a coach at Bally’s that had outgrown the Globo Gym approach to fitness.
Mitch: Anything else?
Paul: Fitness is a way of life. We are designed for it. To ignore this simple fact is to live a less than optimal life. Live a full life and be fit. Also, don’t eat yellow snow.
You can see more about Re-Active at their website www.ReactiveGym.com. Call him at 925-353-4894 to talk about the CrossFit training or if you’d like to talk about personal or small group training at Re-Active you can call me at 510-754-7113.
Mitchell Rothbardt, CPT ACE
Mitch Rothbardt Fitness
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Last Ten Pounds
Hello, everyone! The idea for this week’s article comes from a loyal reader named Michelle. She asked me to write an article on losing the last ten pounds. The question is, why is it so hard to lose that last little bit? Of course, it doesn’t have to be 10 pounds. It could be 15 pounds or five, but what the question is really about, is sticking points. It’s about when the weight stops coming off and what you can do to start it going again. I’ll go into a few reasons why you might hit a sticking point and let you know how to get through it, or hopefully avoid it altogether.
1. Adjust your diet. Depending on where you were when you started your weight loss you might not have readjusted your diet. What I mean is this: Say you started your diet eating at a daily 500 calorie deficit. A month later you’ve maybe lost five or six pounds. At this lighter weight you’ll need fewer calories each day to maintain your weight and if you haven’t readjusted, you may be eating at a maintenance level for your current weight instead of at a deficit. A good strategy is to readjust your diet about every four weeks.
2. Don’t be afraid of a break. If you’ve been on a restrictive diet for a while, you might need a break. After a long period of low calorie eating, your metabolism might be driven down to a point where you’re not burning off calories at the rate you might be used to. Take a week or two and eat at your new maintenance level or even a touch higher. Restart your metabolism and start again.
3. Exercise. Make sure that you are sparing as much lean body mass as you can during your diet. Lean body keeps your metabolism high and is what you want to see when you shed the fat. What this requires is resistance training. Combining full body resistance workouts with interval/circuit style training will maintain or possibly even increase lean body mass and boost your metabolism to make sure that you are burning off the fat you want to get rid of. Long drawn out cardio sessions do not have this effect.
4. Keep a food journal. I know that just cutting back a little may have gotten you to this point, but to lose that last little bit, you may need to be a little more precise. Keeping an accurate food journal will help you know exactly where and how to adjust your diet. Remember, this process gets harder as it goes and if you really want to lose that last ten pounds, small adjustments of just a few hundred calories can be very important.
These are a just a few common mistakes that people make on their way to their goals. Hopefully they’ve given you some insight on how to continue on your way. If you have any questions or want some more individualized advice, please email or call me and let me know how I can help. We still have some summer left, so get out there and have a great time!
Mitchell Rothbardt, CPT
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
1. Adjust your diet. Depending on where you were when you started your weight loss you might not have readjusted your diet. What I mean is this: Say you started your diet eating at a daily 500 calorie deficit. A month later you’ve maybe lost five or six pounds. At this lighter weight you’ll need fewer calories each day to maintain your weight and if you haven’t readjusted, you may be eating at a maintenance level for your current weight instead of at a deficit. A good strategy is to readjust your diet about every four weeks.
2. Don’t be afraid of a break. If you’ve been on a restrictive diet for a while, you might need a break. After a long period of low calorie eating, your metabolism might be driven down to a point where you’re not burning off calories at the rate you might be used to. Take a week or two and eat at your new maintenance level or even a touch higher. Restart your metabolism and start again.
3. Exercise. Make sure that you are sparing as much lean body mass as you can during your diet. Lean body keeps your metabolism high and is what you want to see when you shed the fat. What this requires is resistance training. Combining full body resistance workouts with interval/circuit style training will maintain or possibly even increase lean body mass and boost your metabolism to make sure that you are burning off the fat you want to get rid of. Long drawn out cardio sessions do not have this effect.
4. Keep a food journal. I know that just cutting back a little may have gotten you to this point, but to lose that last little bit, you may need to be a little more precise. Keeping an accurate food journal will help you know exactly where and how to adjust your diet. Remember, this process gets harder as it goes and if you really want to lose that last ten pounds, small adjustments of just a few hundred calories can be very important.
These are a just a few common mistakes that people make on their way to their goals. Hopefully they’ve given you some insight on how to continue on your way. If you have any questions or want some more individualized advice, please email or call me and let me know how I can help. We still have some summer left, so get out there and have a great time!
Mitchell Rothbardt, CPT
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Secret
There is a secret. I’ll tell you if you promise to keep it quiet. It’s not a pill. There is no such thing as that and, frankly, I’m glad. If there was, that would mean that there is an end. A finish. An absolute. Take this and be everything you want. Take this and be perfect, whatever that is. I’m happy there’s not. This is a journey that we need to take. That’s what makes it worthwhile. It’s not just meeting a goal, it’s what we discover about ourselves getting there. What we’ve sacrificed and put ourselves through that makes the final goal mean something to us. It’s what we’ve learned through the process that ensures that we can do it, or something like it, again if we need or choose to. This is what gives us the confidence to achieve other things in our lives. This is what learning and enjoying the process does. So, when people say they wish they could take a pill to lose their belly or lift more weight, know that the real goal isn’t about the belly or the weight. The real goal is to find out more about ourselves and only honest, hard work will allow us to do that. So, yes, there is a secret. The secret is that it’s not supposed to be easy.
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Get Outta Here!
Hello, everyone! I hope you’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful weather we’ve been having. It’s the start of summer and and great time to get out, be active and have a great time.
Today I’m going to talk about some things you can do outside that can help get some weight off and keep it off during these summer months. First, however, let me say this: if you’re going to do an outdoor workout don’t forget your three best friends: water, sunblock and a hat. Dehydration is nothing to mess with and either is a nasty sunburn. Anyway, here we go.
1. Take a walk.
It seems simple, but when the weather is nice this can a great way to be active, get your blood flowing and get that Vitamin D you missed during the rainy season. Also, you burn about 275 calories an hour during an easy stroll. You can do at least that walking around Lake Chabot on a nice afternoon!
2. If you want to do something a little more intense, how about a beach workout.
With the uneven ground and the give and shifting of the sand, it can make some pretty simple exercises very challenging. Have you ever tried running in sand? It’s not easy. How about plain old jumping jacks? Pretty tough.
After a good warm-up and stretching session try the following workout:
20 second plank
15 second sprint
20 second Jumping Jacks
15 second sprint
30 second rest
Do three rounds and see how you feel.
3. Do you not like the beach and want something a little more hardcore? One word: Sandbag!
Get some contractors trash bags, some duct tape and a bag of play sand. Loosely fill some trash bags with five or ten pounds of sand each and duct tape them closed. It wouldn’t hurt to double bag them, either. Make sure the bags are filled a little loosely because you want the sand to be able to move around just a bit. Put the bags you made into an old duffel bag, bear hug it and go for a walk. Half a block should be a good distance to start. If you can go longer, please do. If it’s too light, make another sandbag.
If going for a walk is a little too boring, try this: pick the bag up from the floor and throw it over one shoulder. Put it back down, then pick it up and throw it over the other shoulder. That’s called shouldering. Try this complex:
10 squats holding the bag however you like
10 shoulderings
10 overhead presses
Rest 45 seconds and do it again.
There you go! Really the only thing getting in the way of a great summer workout is your imagination. If you need some more ideas, just let me know, and remember to consult your doctor before beginning any exercise program.
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
Today I’m going to talk about some things you can do outside that can help get some weight off and keep it off during these summer months. First, however, let me say this: if you’re going to do an outdoor workout don’t forget your three best friends: water, sunblock and a hat. Dehydration is nothing to mess with and either is a nasty sunburn. Anyway, here we go.
1. Take a walk.
It seems simple, but when the weather is nice this can a great way to be active, get your blood flowing and get that Vitamin D you missed during the rainy season. Also, you burn about 275 calories an hour during an easy stroll. You can do at least that walking around Lake Chabot on a nice afternoon!
2. If you want to do something a little more intense, how about a beach workout.
With the uneven ground and the give and shifting of the sand, it can make some pretty simple exercises very challenging. Have you ever tried running in sand? It’s not easy. How about plain old jumping jacks? Pretty tough.
After a good warm-up and stretching session try the following workout:
20 second plank
15 second sprint
20 second Jumping Jacks
15 second sprint
30 second rest
Do three rounds and see how you feel.
3. Do you not like the beach and want something a little more hardcore? One word: Sandbag!
Get some contractors trash bags, some duct tape and a bag of play sand. Loosely fill some trash bags with five or ten pounds of sand each and duct tape them closed. It wouldn’t hurt to double bag them, either. Make sure the bags are filled a little loosely because you want the sand to be able to move around just a bit. Put the bags you made into an old duffel bag, bear hug it and go for a walk. Half a block should be a good distance to start. If you can go longer, please do. If it’s too light, make another sandbag.
If going for a walk is a little too boring, try this: pick the bag up from the floor and throw it over one shoulder. Put it back down, then pick it up and throw it over the other shoulder. That’s called shouldering. Try this complex:
10 squats holding the bag however you like
10 shoulderings
10 overhead presses
Rest 45 seconds and do it again.
There you go! Really the only thing getting in the way of a great summer workout is your imagination. If you need some more ideas, just let me know, and remember to consult your doctor before beginning any exercise program.
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT
http://www.mitchrothbardtfitness.com/
MitchRothbardtTraining@yahoo.com
510-754-7113
Discover Your Strength!
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