Well, here we go guys. I am 21 days into my own June Fitness Challenge. For those of you who don’t know, I decided to make a fitness goal of losing 3% bodyfat for the month of June. I have 9 days left, and I just wanted to update you on my status. Right now, I have been for the most part, eating very clean. Most of my meals consist of either a protein shake with skim milk, 6 egg whites, one yolk, and a cup of spinach mixed with a teaspoon of olive oil and some salsa, or a chicken breast, broccoli, and a cup of rice. The first week, went GREAT. within one week, I lost a percentage and a half of bodyfat. This is going to be easy right. Nope. Since that first week, I have only lost a half percent more. I will admit, my nutrition plan has taken a detour due to gifts from a couple clients. I still have yet to find out if they are trying to sabotage me on purpose:) Anyway, I have 9 days left, to lose a whole percentage bodyfat. This is going to be tough, and a real tight race. Who do you have? The bodyfat, or me? Choose wisely.
Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category
Las Vegas Fitness Expert- My Report
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
What is Your Fitness Commitment?
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010So you have decided to re-evaluate your fitness plan. It’s time to finally get in shape. You have the funds for a personal trainer, you have gone grocery shopping finally, and you just joined a gym(again). You really want to get rid of that 15 pounds of fat that you gained in the wintertime. Or your birthday. Or when your girlfriend/boyfriend broke up with you. You are READY to go. The fat will be gone in two months. you’ve set a weight loss goal, and you are sticking to it! You have an appointment with your personal trainer for your first workout this Friday. Everyone is excited. You, your trainer, and your mom. Friday comes around, and your friends ask you to go to the new Harry Potter movie, the same time you are supposed to start with your trainer. You don’t want to miss the movie, but you also don’t want to see it by yourself, so you text your trainer, saying you can’t make it. No harm done. Harry Potter is awesome. I can’t blame you. You reschedule for Tuesday, and enjoy the movie. Tuesday comes, and you are psyched about finally getting to start with your trainer. But work is asking you if you can stay another hour or two later. It’s not required, but you decide you should stay. You text your trainer, apologize, and stay late. You finally do get to meet up with your trainer, a week later, and start your fitness. The wind is slightly knocked out of your sail, but you do start exercising. Now you are on your way to your fitness goals. But the next week, two times you stay late at work again, another time you don’t work out because you are too tired from work, and then you have to take a lazy day off of doing nothing. So the very next week, you work out once with your trainer, and have a half ass workout at the gym.
This scenario plays out a lot more than you would think. I get a lot of people, who are motivated to finally get in shape, only to have outside sources hold them up. Whether it’s work, or friends, or Harry Potter movies, there is always something that takes priority. Why don’t you make fitness a priority for you. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself. Would you cancel a doctors appointment? Would you cancel work, because you just feel like going to a movie? There are all kinds of reasons people think are justifiable to delay their fitness goals, but to me, none of them are. If you take fitness as a priority and treat it just as any other appointment you have, you’ll find that your goals will come much quicker than if fitness can take a backseat to other things. Treat it as your job, and it won’t let you down. Treat it as something that can be cancelled or substituted whenever, and you will find that goals won’t come as swiftly as they say in the infomercials.
Can You Be Fat AND Fit? Las Vegas Fitness Experts
Sunday, June 13th, 2010Read the title. Yeah. I asked that question. I think it’s a good one. Being a personal trainer, I have run into many people, fit, and unfit, in shape, and a mess. Now, visually, you can’t always tell who these people are. And this is where my question comes from. Take Glen Davis of the Boston Celtics. If you saw this guy, you would think he’s a overweight, and needs a little exercise. Except he is in one of the most physically demanding jobs in professional sports. The guy is probably in better physical condition than I am. He probably has a higher level of fitness than me, so why does he look like that? Well, some people are missing one component of fitness. He might not watch what he eats at all, but he exercises all out daily. I do not. But I watch what I eat. you put me in that same basketball game, and I’m probably gassed by the end of the first half. I’ll give you another example. When I first started out training, I worked with an aerobics instructor who taught classes, literally ALL day. About 8 classes a day. She did the classes with everyone too. Now, I will say, she was not ripped by any means. You wouldn’t look at her and say, “Hey, I bet she just does step classes all day long!” Well, she could still run all of us into the ground. The point I am trying to get across here is just because someone looks fit, doesn’t mean they are. And just because someone isn’t concerned with their weight, doesn’t mean they are out of shape. Ya feel me?
Fitness SPRINTervals-Las Vegas Workout
Sunday, June 6th, 2010Las Vegas is hot. No doubt about it. I finished my workout today, on the track at a nearby high school, and I could not stop sweating. That heat was just right for this personal trainer though. I did a few backwards runs, and some 100 meter sprints, and you wouldn’t believe what you can accomplish on a fat burning level with sprints. When I want to lose fat, this is what I incorporate. I’m not going to say your situation allows you to go to the nearest high school track and do sprints. For all I know, you could live in Alaska, where it’s too cold, or you just don’t want to deal with the 100 degree heat here. maybe you don’t have access to a track because where you live, all high schools are behind security bars, I just don’t know. Anyway. You can still do these sprint intervals wherever it is you may be. If you have a bike, or a treadmill, or nothing at all, you can still do this kind of exercise. What this is, is basically an all out effort for a short period of time. Let’s say you have no exercise equipment at all. What you can do, is do as many jumping jacks as you can in 30 seconds. Now these, aren’t regular jumping jacks. These are quick, intense, pushing in, pulling out jumping jacks. you should average more than one per second. This could be your exercise for 15 minutes. Spend 30 seconds doing the j.j’s, then 1:30 resting. Do another 30, and continue the trend for all 15 minutes. Trust me, if you do this right, you’ll be tired. So, to finish this up, you can do interval sprints anywhere. But to make it effective, it’s the effort you put out on the sprints that are going to make all the difference.
The June Fitness Challenge-What’s Your Workout?
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010Hello United States. Your friendly personal trainer, back with another blog post. This month, I want to join in the fitness quest. Now, I stay relatively lean all year round. This has to do with my workout, nutrition, and way of life mostly. I understand that everyone has certain roadblocks and different circumstances when it comes to reaching fitness goals, but we all have goals. So what is your goal. Let’s take this month, and have a little challenge between ALL of us. Myself included. Now, what I am proposing, doesn’t have to be this “Ooh I’m so fat and I am gonna turn myself into this mean muscle machine in 30 days!” type of thing. What if your goal is to just START working out, or to work out for 3 days a week. Maybe your goal is to lose 5 pounds this month. Whatever it is, LET’S DO IT. There is no better time to plan for it, the time is now. For myself, I want to join in this effort, and be together with everyone. I don’t have a ton of bodyfat to lose, but I am going to make my goal, just as difficult as the next persons. Right now, I am at 6.64% bodyfat. This next month, I will try to get down to 3% bodyfat. I want to be part of this too. So what I would like you all to do, is tell me what your goal is, and what you plan to do to get there. I am going to be writing a daily journal of some of the different things i adjust, to reach my goal. What will you do? Send me an email, stating your goals, maybe a beginning picture, some stats, and your plan. At the end of the month, I want another email, with new pictures, new results and a better you! As always, if you have questions about your own workout, let me know. Now, you can hire a personal trainer, you can do this on your own, or you can do a little of both. We want results people. We are trying to change our lives, so again I say, LET’S DO THIS! My email is tony@tonycress.com We have from now until June 30th. I will choose a few winners, and tell their stories. We’ll also deliver some prizes to the best transformers. But not Transformers 2. That movie was way worse. Anyway, I’m listening.
Fitness- Not Just About Lifting Weights
Friday, May 28th, 2010We are back from Iowa. We had a great time doing the show, American Storm while we were there, and we also had one heck of a workout while we were there too. I would like to share this story. We decided, my brother and I, that we could beat the rest of the crew of American Storm while we were in Iowa, at a game of basketball. 2 on 5. Yes, that’s right. 2 guys against 5 guys. Now, although this seems like a huge mismatch, it turns out, it was. But not the way you might think. The short story of it all, is that Terry(my brother), and I, literally SPANKED the rest of the cast. They also had our stage manager, and our sound and lights man at their disposal for substitutions. Playing to 25 by 1’s and 2’s, we beat them 25-5. The math doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I know. But here’s the thing. The rest of the guys in the show, have great bodies, they look amazing, and go to the gym. They do their lifts and their cardio. Their workouts are good, but they lack one thing. Diversity. All these guys know is lifting weights. Now, I’m not trying to knock them, but this was no competition. No one on the other team had any basketball experience. Nor did they know how to move laterally, or transversely. They didn’t know how to change direction. The thing about this is, you need to be able to do that in life. It’s that simple. Now, you won’t necessarily have to guard a former college athlete in the sport that they played, but what about if you go on a snowboarding trip. You need to know how to move side to side, and twist and turn when necessary, or else it’s going to be a pretty unexciting trip. Or lets say you are playing with your brothers kid. Running and chasing them around. That kid is going to be all over the place. Wouldn’t you like to be able to keep up with them? The point I am trying to make here, is that weights and cardio and the traditional workout are great for “bodybuilding“, but for daily life “fitness“, they don’t account for much. So diversify your workouts. Learn to do something new. Take up a sport, or lessons of some sort, or just play like a kid. You’ll be more competitive when you challenge two former college basketball players to a game they love. If you are interested in watching the mayhem, I posted it on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDXLFH6jLs
Fitness Isn’t Just a Body Thing
Sunday, May 16th, 2010I went on a bike ride today. I think it did me more good than just burning a few calories. I didn’t take an ipod. Ididn’t have a heart rate monitor on. I definitely didn’t have my cell phone on me. I just decided to ride through some of Las Vegas. Just me and my bike. Just me and my bike y’all. If you know that Biggie song, the previous sentence is funny. But here’s the deal. I was riding my bike, for the fitness aspect of it, yes. I do need to up my cardio a bit. But what I found, wasn’t that it was the fitness aspect of it I needed most. It was the mind clearing aspect of it. See, without my ipod, or cell phone or technology, I was able to actually think. I was able to enjoy my surroundings, and just ride. A few minutes into the bike ride, I didn’t care how many calories i was burning or how intense this workout was going to be. I just decided, that I wanted to ride my bike. So the lesson to be learned in this whole thing, is sometimes, you have to just do some things, that aren’t for fitness benefits. Just get out there and move. It reminded me that certain activities help you stay sane. Certain exercises free your mind. This is just as important as getting your six pack, or losing those last few pounds of body fat. So go back to your childhood, and do something fun. Not just for fitness or exercise, but because you want to. You’ll notice that you’ll get some great benefits physically, and you’ll be more apt to stick with it, if it’s some kind of release for you.
Infomercial Fitness- Are WE Next?
Friday, May 14th, 2010I have never done P90X. I have definitely watched the videos. I have also never done that Insanity one. But I have also watched those fitness dvd’s. I have opinions on both, but don’t care to go into those. They are definitely both hardcore, amazing workouts, but can everyone do them? I don’t think so. This got me thinking. I need to make a fitness dvd program, that is geared towards not only the people who are elite athletes and who want to get ripped, but also the guy next door, who wants to just live longer, and have a more enjoyable life. What do you guys think? I’d love to have some feedback on this, as I am going to go ahead and follow through with this project I think needs to be done. Any questions, tips, recommendations, or donations are greatly appreciated. You can email me at tony@tonycress.com. Thank you guys for your time. This is going to be one heck of an experience.
The Fitness Game- Don’t Cheat
Saturday, May 8th, 2010So, we have you finally workin’ on your fitness. You have decided to make a change. You start eating right, working out, and paying attention to your physical well being. Awesome! Congratulations! I promise you this is a decision you won’t regret. I want to talk to you specifically about the working out part today. I see a lot of things go on, while I am with my personal training clients, or with my fitness campers, or in the gym in general. These things are both good and bad. Yes, you are on the right track, getting in your workout, spending time in the gym or in group exercise classes. But the thing I see in adults, when they take on these things, is that they lose that drive from competition. I will take my fitness camp for an example. Now, the people in fitness camp work hard, there is NO doubt about that. But what I see, when we partner up, or we do team races, is that some people “cheat”, or slack off. Let’s say you are doing partner leg throws. Now, your partner doesn’t want to make you mad, so they only throw your legs at a moderate level. If this were me, I’d beg for a little more effort. Either they are afraid when it’s their turn, you are going to throw their legs with too much force, or they don’t want to hurt you. I think both are cop out excuses. You are there for a reason. To get a benefit out of this workout. By doing this, you are cheating both yourself, and your partner. Aren’t you there to put forth a maximum effort, and to get results from this whole fitness thing? If you just go through the motions, what reward will you get? A garbage one. If you try your hardest every workout, those gains are going to come that much quicker, and you will be even MORE thrilled that you decided to take this journey! The same can be said in the gym. If you push yourself, get a few more reps in with the weights, go another mile on that treadmill, you will REAP the rewards and benefits. Your body is an amazing machine, and you need to realize just what potential it holds. Don’t go for “good enough”. Go for “amazing”!
Your Fitness. What is it Worth?
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010There are plenty of fitness infomercials on tv right now. I can flip through the channels at any given time and see commercials for the newest craze. A weight you just “shake”. A program promising amazing results in 90 days. Another fitness program claiming you’d have to be “insane” to not do it. Obviously, a lot of these advertisements work, so it tells me one thing. People do care about their health. The fact that people are buying these products says they do want to put in some effort, even if these are the “quick fixes”. Once the product is purchased, who really knows how much use one will get out of it. But that brings up another question in my mind. How much is your fitness worth to you? I don’t know that you could put a monetary value on it, but let’s just look at it a couple different ways. Living in Las Vegas, the nightclub scene is tops. There are places that charge $22 for one drink! And guess what. People buy them. Now, normally, you don’t have just one drink, so let’s say you have three. With a tip, we can say that’s about $75 right? No big deal, you were out drinking. Now let’s turn this into fitness and exercise. One, you just spent some money on things that are taking you away from your fitness goals, and two, that money could have been spent on something taking you towards those very same goals. So now, is it not worth it to pay the extra few dollars to buy organic? Is three drinks really worth one personal training session? I’m going to end this here, but take a look at your goals, and figure out what is worth what to you.
