Workout Tips While On Holiday

As you make plans to go off on holiday and relax and unwind after a few months of high-stress, it’s important that you don’t completely abandon your fitness program altogether.

Not only will maintaining some degree of a workout program while you’re away help to reduce the chances that you start to gain weight, but it’ll also make it that much easier to carry on with your program upon your return.

If you take a complete week (or longer) off your workout, you’re going to find that when you get back to it, you’re incredibly sore and just feel ‘out of it’ overall.

Let’s take a quick look at a few of the top workout tips to remember for your vacation.

Bring Some Equipment
The very first thing that you’ll want to do is make sure you go prepared. Bring a few of your own pieces of workout equipment so that at the very least, you can do a quick workout in your hotel room.

A skipping rope is the perfect option for your cardio training session and a resistance band will help you keep the strength component in place.

Both of these are incredibly lightweight and will easily fit right in your suitcase.

Call Ahead To Check On Gym Facilities
The second thing that you should do is call ahead to wherever you’re staying and see what gym facilities are available.

If you can find this out ahead of time, it’s going to be that much easier to plan a workout that you can do using the equipment there.

It’s very important that you go in with a plan. If you don’t have a plan, the chances that you skip over the workout will be that much greater. If you do, you’re one step ahead of the game.

Keep The Workouts Short But Intense
When it comes to the actual workouts you do while away on holiday, intensity should be the name of your game.

You can cut back on the volume of your standard workout by up to 2/3’s as long as you maintain the intensity of the session. This will allow you to maintain your fitness level so that you can pick right back up as soon as you return home again.

This will also make it easy to perform short workouts that don’t eat up your vacation time, making it that much easier to get them in as well.

So there you have the most important tips to remember as you go about your hotel workouts while on vacation. If you take some time to prepare yourself for them and stay committed to leading the healthy lifestyle while you’re away, when you arrive back home it’ll feel as though you’ve never skipped a beat.

Have a Wonderful and Safe Holiday Folks!!

The One Exercise Technique That Will Help You Burn More Calories Daily

Tired of going to the gym but not seeing the best results from your workout? One of the top trends that many personal trainers are noting right now is the number of people going at their workouts alone but never seeing the progress they’re after. They see the same individuals in the gym day after day, doing their workout routine, but they hardly ever look any different from week to week. This is also what leads many people to sign up to work with a personal trainer in the first place. If you can learn a few simple techniques for how you should structure your workout program however, you can get past this hurdle and back on to success. One specific exercise technique that is extremely effective for helping you burn off more calories not only during the session but for hours after its completed as well is a superset. Let’s look more closely at what this is all about. What A Superset Is A superset is essentially where you take two exercises and pair them immediately back to back with each other.  So for instance, you might do a lunge and then move directly into a shoulder press. Or, you might do a squat and then perform a bench press.  Whatever your chosen mode of exercises are, you’re doing these two movements with no rest in between. Once both are completed, then you’ll rest for 30 seconds before starting up again. Exercises To Perform When selecting the exercises that you’ll want to perform with your supersets, the best advice is to select compound movements as often as possible.  It’s these exercises that are going to help to boost your metabolism the fastest since they’re going to be working so many muscle tissues all at once. Top compound movements to include are the squat, deadlift, chest press, bent over row, shoulder press, lunge, split squat, or leg press. While you can use isolation exercises such as bicep curls, tricep extensions, lateral raises, leg extensions and hamstring curls for your supersets and still see results, these tend to be slightly less effective than the former. Key Points To Know Finally, last but not least, as you go about introducing the superset into your workout program to help boost your total daily calorie burn, make sure that you aren’t doing all your exercise as supersets. Choose two or three different supersets and then keep the rest as straight sets. If you overload and do too many, you’ll just find yourself overtrained before you know and quite possibly, injured.  Supersets are intense so you need to strive for balance with them in your workout routine. So there you have the one technique that’s a must-add to your workout program for faster success.  Always remember that if you are struggling, consulting with a good personal trainer will be your best bet to get your progress moving onwards as fast as possible.

Four Workout Mistakes

If you are seeking fat loss success, getting a good workout program in place will be a must.  The workouts you do are going to help to boost your metabolic rate, improve your lean muscle mass retention, and ensure that you are looking tone and defined as you lose the weight, not soft and flabby.

Yet, many people are still making a few critical errors as they go about their workout, so it’s vital that we clear those up so that you can make sure you steer clear of them.

Let’s look at what you should know.

Doing Only Cardio Training

The very first error you might be making is focusing strictly on cardio training.  Some people come to believe that cardio is the exercise to do for fat loss while weight lifting is the exercise to do for muscle building.

Nothing is further from the truth.  Weight lifting is a far superior form of exercise for fat loss, so getting it in is a must.

Working Out Seven Days A Week

Another big mistake that many people make is working out seven days a week. Remember, your body does need time to rest and repair, especially when eating a reduced calorie diet.

At this point you aren’t providing a lot of fuel for recovery purposes, so if you aren’t providing rest either, you’ll really be in for some trouble.

You should always have at least one day off each week from all exercise, if not two.

Lifting Light Weights

The next vital mistake that some people make is turning to very light weights in their weight lifting program.  The thought behind this concept is that by using light weight and high reps, they’ll take their calorie burn up higher during the workout, helping move fat burning along.

Sadly, this isn’t the case.

You should be focusing on heavy weight more often because it’s heavy weight that will help you maintain your lean muscle mass, stroking your metabolic rate in the process.

Never Changing Things Up

Finally, the last big mistake that some people make is never changing their workout around.  Remember, your body is highly adaptive and if you’re doing the same workout day in and day out, you aren’t going to be making any progress forward.

Once your body can do a given workout, it’ll just maintain the status quo.

In order to move forward and see faster progress, you need to give the body a reason to do so.  Add a new exercise, do more reps, or change the order of your exercises around.

Just do something to evoke change and you’ll see faster success because of it.

So there you have the top mistakes that you must make sure you’re not making in your workout program. If you are making any of these, it’s high time you changed something around.  

Weekly Class Sched

Weekly Class Schedule

Monday

2:00 -3:30 pm Self Myofacial Release 

(2nd Monday of each month)

Teacher: Barbara Nolan

6:00 - 7:00pm Young Scholars Program
7:30 - 8:30 Adult Martial Arts Class
(Teacher: Matthew Mercer)

Tuesday

9:00 - 10:00 am Adult Martial Arts.


6:00 - 7:00pm Young Scholars Program
7:30 - 8:30 Adult Martial Arts Class

(Teacher: Matthew Mercer)

Wednesday

6:00 - 7:00pm Young Scholars Program
7:30 - 8:30 Adult Martial Arts Class

(Teacher: Matthew Mercer)

Thursday

9:00 - 10:00 am Adult Martial Arts.


6:00 - 7:00pm Young Scholars Program
7:30 - 8:30 Adult Martial Arts Class

(Teacher: Matthew Mercer)

Friday

Personal Training by Appointment.

Saturday

10:30 - 11:30 am Adult Martial Arts.

(Teacher: Matthew Mercer)

12:30 - 2:00 pm IMA BBC

Sunday

Vinyassa Flow 

12:30 - 1:30 pm

Teacher: Jacky Pagone

Personal Training & Private Lessons:
Monday through Friday by Appointment
Please Call for Availability (702) 546-6463

Coming In August: Sunday Vinyassa Flow Classes!

I am extremely excited to announce that Jacky Pagone, one of my favorite yoga instructors will be offering her Vinyassa Flow class each Sunday beginning on August 5th.

In addition teaching yoga Jacky is a dance and Pilates instructor as well as a performer in the Nathan Burton Comedy Magic Show & Marc Savard's Comedy Hypnosis Show. Jacky is a certified Yoga Instructor and Reiki Master licensed through The NCBTMB

Classes are scheduled to begin Sunday August 5th!!!


Here is a little from Jacky's bio:

In search to prevent her body from further wear and tear and repair previous dance injuries, Jacky began practicing yoga in 2006. She soon found herself in advanced level classes, and realized she had to share this yoga bliss. She received her Hot Yoga certification from CorePower Yoga in February 2010, and immediately began instructing at Las Vegas Hot! Yoga and Pilates.
Hungry for more, Jacky began taking various workshops, and attending many different styles of yoga classes. She has received certification in Prenatal Vinyassa Yoga through world renown Jennifer Wolfe.
Jacky loves to help guide people of all walks of life to discover more about their mind-body-spirit connection, and learn to feel better about themselves then they ever have before.

Jacky Pagone

Come experience a yoga class that will strengthen, balance, rejuvenate and energize you from the inside out.

All Levels Are Welcome!

12:30 - 1:30 pm Sundays (beginning August 5th)

$10 drop-in cash or credit/debit card.

Jacky's strong, calm presence in the room denotes someone that has taken her practice of yoga into the practice of teaching. Her soothing voice and confident instruction allow students to easily enter into meditative states, and make her classes much more than just a "workout". Her ability to communicate corrections and proper alignments, while maintaining the flow of the class put Jacky on the level of a master teacher.   

Mike Strong -Yoga Student & 30 year practitioner & teacher of Chinese Internal Martial Arts

New September Schedule

Greetings all,

Can you believe it is already September?

This month I will be trying out a new schedule as suggested to me by both Mister Joe Salomone and Sensai Miguel.  The new schedule is to go into effect on Tuesday September 13th.

Class time will continue to be 12:30 p.m., however the days will be changed to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

This new schedule should give us a nice even spread of workouts with at least one day in between for rest and recovery.  My intention at this time is for students to come to class twice each week and on a good week picking up a third is fine.

Don't forget that practicing at home is also important.  Please make a note of this change, and thank you for your patience as I am a student in this as well.


Peace,

Matthew


Here is the new schedule:

Class Schedule
as of 9/013/2011

Monday

• By Appointment
  

Tuesday

• 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm     All Levels  Theo

Wedensday

• By Appointment

Thursday

• 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm  All Levels  Matthew 

Friday

• By Appointment

Saturday

• 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm    All Levels  Matthew

Booty Bounces

Mimi: Ok, nice job on the knee raises.  Booty hops are next.

Me: Booty hops?

Mimi: Yeah, you know, booty hops.

Me: You mean Garhammer Raise?

Mimi: No, I call them Booty Hops.  They are much more fun.

Me: I don't want to do Booty Hops, I wanna do Garhammers.  Much more manly.

Mimi: Nope, your doing booty hops!

Me: Thor wouldn't do booty hops.  Thor would do Garhammers.

Mimi: You are GOING to do booty hops.  Twelve of them, now stop stalling.

Me: /sigh Fine!  Booty hops, twelve?

Mimi: NO!  Booty bounces, yes twelve.

Me:  Booty Bounces?

Mimi: Yup, Booty Bounces.

Me: Not booty hops?

Mimi: Nope I just changed it.  

Me: From booty hops?

Mimi:  Uh huh, see much more fun to say, booty, booty, bounce...bounce...bounce.

Me: Just now?  You can do that?

Mimi: Yep, NOW GO already!  Twelve.

Me: Mimi have you been hitting the Red Bull?

Mimi: Nope, I'm all natural this morning.  I think I'm suffering from too-much-lack-of-sleep.

Me: You mean you didn't get enough sleep?

Mimi: Nope, too-much-lack-of-sleep.  BOOTY BOUNCES, GO NOW!

Me: Twelve?

Mimi:  Ghhhhaaaaaa!!!!!

My Next Six Weeks

I have had a two week break and now I am ready to begin the next 6 week workout program. Here is the outline that I have created to lay down my goals.

Six-Week Training Goals

Primary Goal: Break Through the 19% Body Fat Plateau

I'd like to reach 180lbs at 15% Body Fat

Objectives:

1. Complete Final Phase Fat Loss Program (Body Weight Edition)

2. Personal Training: Mimi Ward (Super Hero Trainer of Awesome)

A. Core Strengthening

B. Focus on muscle imbalances

C. Strengthen Back & Hamstrings

D. Yumminess Factor.

3. Optional Workouts

A. Kettlebell Classes

B. Workout Stations @ Phantom

4. Gravity Poses for Flexibility Each Day

A. Inversion

B. Gravity Pose Routine

5. Nutrition

A. Strategic Cleansing

1. Monday = 24 hr. Water Fast

2. Bowel Cleanse

3. Liver/Gall Bladder Cleanse

4. Bladder/Kidney Cleanse

A. BCAA Supplement

B. Add Olive or Coconut Oil to Morning Flush Drink

B. Reduce fat intake to 15%.

C. Set my protein intake minimum to 144 grams/day.

D. Reduce Carbs by 100g or so.

E. Begin using ISSA's Zig Zag diet method.

...and to make things complete I have taken before photos to track my progress at the end of the six weeks.  I'll post those along with the results at the end of the six weeks.

Here are the stats:
Weight = 189 lbs @ 19.6 % body fat. (152 LBM)