Upcoming Hi-5 Fitcamp...and an upcoming event.

Hey gang,

The a new round of the Hi-5 FitCamp is coming on Monday morning! Keep telling your friends and family that summer is right around the corner and waiting till May to start shaping up is too late!!

Also remember that this weekend is DAYLIGHT SAVINGS and we SPRING FORWARD 1 hour. Which means it will be dark once again when we get to class in the morning.

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As for what to expect this round of the Hi-5 FitCamp, well we are going to have a couple more brute strength type of exercises that women should NOT BE AFRAID OF. Remember what was said about pullups. "They aren't LADY-LIKE" or "I don't want to get BULKY!"

Trust me, you won't get bulky. But by doing some heavy lifts you will - 

• Increase your resting metabolism
• Burn more fat
• Be more resistant to injury
• Give you the "toned" look all women want
• and...

Wait... Lets go back to that concept of "toning" and really slap it up side the head.

Toning is a word that gets MIS-used all the time. Every woman and most men want it, but what exactly is it?

If I ask somebody what their goals are and they say to get toned, what exactly are the asking for? Often times I get the answer of, "well a little less fat, a little more muscle. You know...toned!"

I bet she does pull-ups and squats every now and then.

So what is muscle tone? Muscle tone is simply an increase in resting tension levels within a muscle. So how do you increase muscle tone? Easy. 

Add more muscle. In other words, toning IS bulking up, just in more "female-friendly" words. And to really bulk up, a person must eat. A LOT. So what happens if you start gaining TOO MUCH muscle? 


First off, the odds of that happening are slim-to-none. But if it DID happen, how would we combat it?


Stop eating so much. Remember, the body can only rebuild if it has sufficient materials. Stop giving it the appropriate material and the body will stop building. But it will maintain strength. 

And that is something every woman wants.

The fountain of YOUTH...for men??

Every month or so, I get a new copy of "The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research." Each month has plenty of good information in it. But this months had an article that I knew I had to read it. 

Its been a pursuit of men everywhere since who knows how long. I believe it was Ponce de Leon who was searching for the fountain of youth somewhere in Florida back in the 1600's. But he should have been looking in a weight room.

A recent study by Canadian researchers took 20 older men with an average age of 64 and compared their muscle mass, muscle thickness and bench press/leg press strength levels to groups of younger men with an average age of 24 years old. 

At the beginning of the study, the older group had less muscle mass, less muscle thickness, and strength levels were nearly half that of the younger group. The older group engaged in a resistance training program consisting of bench press, leg press, pulldowns, shoulder press, leg extension, leg curls, biceps curl and triceps extension, for 22 weeks at 3 times per week. 

Hey Cowles, I got your picture!!

At the end of the 22 weeks, the older group had gained over 6 lbs of muscle, with some in the group adding over 14 lbs of muscle!! Their strength levels had increased remarkably, leg press strength increasing by an average of 120 lbs and bench press strength increasing by nearly 70 lbs!

At the end of the 22 weeks, the older group was significantly improved in all measures and were nearly equivalent with the younger group in strength of both leg press and bench press, lean muscle mass and muscle thickness!

The study did not evaluate other health measurements such as cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate, vascular resistance, etc. But this study certainly showed that if you are looking to turn back the clock, strength training is THE WAY to go about it!

So there it is guys, if you aren't lifting at least twice per week, you may be missing the boat!

Stay tuned later this weekend for next week's workout!

How to sabatoge your weightloss goals without even putting food in your mouth!!

So watching Biggest Loser last night I saw something that really hit home. And I needed to talk about it. But first let me set the background. (If you watched then you probably know what I am talking about). Bob asked his group to create video log of what they eat for a day. So they did it, thinking they were doing so good. But Bob reamed them for eating too little.

Unfortunately people get so hung up on eating less that we some how skip over this very important fact and sabotage ourselves by not giving ourselves enough food-

You must eat because your body needs fuel

I know it sounds simple yet contradictory to weight loss but lets take a look at how this fits into the car analogy. If I overload on fuel, I will have too much and extra weight will not allow my car to function optimally. But if I don't have enough fuel, I will not be able to get where I need to go.

Your body has a minimal amount of energy it needs throughout the day. If you do not meet this energy need, your body will start breaking down muscle for fuel. This is not what we want. If you do this, I can promise you will end up with a "skinny-fat" look. You will be thinner than you were before, but you can count on flabby arms, flabby thighs and the dreaded "cankles." Who wants that?? This happens because your body breaks down muscle and leaves the fat behind.

There is a very detailed cause for this but suffice it to say, protein offers a quicker energy source than fat. So when your body needs fuel quickly and has no energy from food, it will cannibalize muscle.

So take the estimated number of calories you need (find it here) and multiply by .8. This will give you how many calories you should be eating to lose weight through diet alone. If we increase activity levels, we will see even a greater deficit and before you know it the fat starts dropping off and the muscle stays.

It's simple but not easy. You can do it and remember, summer is on its way. There are no substitutes for hard work and perseverance.