When you work out, do you think about anything in particular? If you get personal training, are you thinking about the exercises you are doing, or is your mind wandering? Do you feel the muscles that are called upon for each exercises, or do you just go through the motions, until the desired number of repetitions are completed. A lot of your gains in fitness have to do with your mind, connecting to your muscles. If you don’t think about your six pack working, how do you know it is? If you don’t feel your hamstrings tighten in a curl, are you really getting the most out of that workout. You have to know the feeling of using muscles. So what i suggest to you is this. Do a yoga class, or start doing more balance exercises. It’s amazing how you might feel when everything you do is on one leg. All of a sudden, muscles throughout your foot, around your knee, and hip, are activated. Muscles you didn’t know could get tired, get tired. In yoga, you have to learn balance as well. Learning how to contract the right muscles, will give you bigger gains in the weight room, and will also keep you away from injuries. So, go meditate already.
Posts Tagged ‘Exercise’
Personal Training-Working Out Your Mind
Monday, April 19th, 2010
Las Vegas Personal Training- Your Goals.
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Las Vegas and the rest of the country, ask yourself this question. Are you where you want to be right now? It’s April, and the months are warming up. Is this where you expected your fitness level to be at, right now? Have you lost that bodyfat that you planned on doing in January? What have your workouts been like? Are you following your nutrition the way you had planned? Ok. That’s about 15 questions, not one. Who’s counting though? Anyway. If you are exactly where you planned to be, good job! It takes a lot of dedication and determination to reach the fitness and exercise goals some people come up with. You are prime examples of what you can do when you put the knowledge and desire to work for yourself. Keep doing what you are doing. For those of you, who still think you have some work to do, you still have time. You can decide, today, that you are going to start changing things. The way you eat. What your workout is like. Little things, like deciding to eat at least two solid vegetables today, is a huge start. Might not seem like much, but it sets the wheels in motion. Deciding to go to the gym today. That is another great start. Why keep waiting, when your results are waiting for you to go get them? Just wanted to give you guys some things to think about. Just spend five minutes, mapping out how you can get to those fitness goals you have, or any goals for that matter. Ask yourself why you haven’t reached them, and how you can change the things you do to get to them. Have a great day folks!
Las Vegas Personal Training- Welcome To The Show
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Las Vegas, watch out. There is a new personal trainer at TonyCress.com, and her name is Emily Bussey. She was a former client of mine, who posessed the drive, intelligence and knowledge to follow fitness as a career. Every time she would come to fitness camp, she would dominate the workout, and I would see her in Las Vegas Athletic Club, working her tail off, trying new exercises. I knew she would be a perfect fit for what we here at TonyCress.com want to accomplish with our clients and our personal training. Emily is a former college athlete, playing volleyball at Adams State. She has battled after finishing her college career, to become, what I think, is close to the ideal female physique. She knows what it takes to get in shape, and I feel that she can be successful in helping others attain that goal as well. I also needed the opinion of the opposite sex for a lot of my programming, and I think Emily is the perfect fit. Right now, she is taking on new clients, to help them reach their health goals, and she teaches our Monday Fitness Camp. If you are interested in working with Emily, feel free to give me a call, or email me, and let me know. 702-489-7587 or tony@tonycress.com . Emily is a great addition to our team, and I know she will be able to help you out! Oh yeah, if you wanna look at a funny challenge between us, you can check it out on youtube here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkWf1tSEO58
Las Vegas Personal Training- Got Any Tips?
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010Hello my personal training fans. Just sitting here in Las Vegas, thinking about a few things. What is it with guys in the gym or fitness center? Why must the majority of them pretend to be the most genius people out there when it comes to women’s workout knowledge. One of my clients inspired me to write about this. So, let’s say you are a guy, in the gym, and you see a girl who is getting her exercise on. I’ll tell you right now, don’t go hit on her. But you wanna talk to her. Don’t. Oh snap. You walk up to her, and you say, “Hey, can i show you how to really do that exercise?” I slap my head in disbelief. Seriously? Did you just do that? Come on man. At least wait until she’s done with her workout. She’s in better shape than you, and she knows more than you do most likely. Anyway. Just had to rant. Have a good day kids:)
Las Vegas Personal Training- Six Pack Fitness
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Las Vegas, and the surrounding areas of the United States, Happy Sunday from your 3rd favorite personal trainer. Just checking in on you guys. While everyone else is out at the pools today here, I am writing a fitness blog, and hosting my parents for a visit because my brother had a baby on Wednesday. Welcome to this world Aries Cress! He’s already got a six pack! Well, maybe not, but he definitely flexes his muscles all the time. Just updating you all on the happenings in the lives of my family. Anyway, we have got to get back on the exercise train. What have you done this week? how have your workouts been? Are you following your nutrition and diet plan? What have you done today to reach your fitness goals? Sometimes we all need this reminder to get ourselves back on track. So, here is your reminder. If you haven’t had a workout this whole week, I’m going to give you one right now. Start small. Get back into the groove. Do 200 jumping jacks, 50 pushups, 50 squat jumps, and 50 mountain climbers. Try to finish this in 10 minutes. It’ll do you wonders, and help you realize you are back in the game. Have a great day.
Warm Weather Workouts- Las Vegas Personal Training
Saturday, March 20th, 2010It’s getting warm here in Las Vegas! This means I’m going to start taking my personal training clients outside soon. For all of you who want to get some workouts done outdoors, I have a few tips for you. When you are working out outside, you have to remember to hydrate. Sometimes we don’t realize how hard we are actually working out when we leave the gym, and you DO lose a lot of water being outside. Ever seen people at the pool who aren’t even doing much but they get carted off in an ambulance because of dehydration? Yeah. Ok, next step. Wear layers. You’ll find out at first, you’ll think it’s too cold, then all of a sudden you be dripping sweat. Be prepared to get naked:). Another thing, if you want variety, go to a park. You’ll find playground equipment, benches, and some parks even have workout challenges posted around the park. This gives you tons of options to play around with. And lastly, run fast. When you are outside, go all out. Have fun, be a kid again and get dirty!
Las Vegas Personal Training- Pool Ready Bodies pt. 2
Monday, March 15th, 2010Yo Yo Vegas! What’s up playas! I hear that all the time personal training. I don’t take a client unless they talk like that. Really. No, seriously. Ok. I probably don’t want to train you if i have to spend somewhere around an hour hearing you talk like that. But anyway, let’s get down to business. Last part of this blog, I was talking about how you can gain muscle to look good for the pools. Today, I’m going to talk quickly about how you can lose the last lbs. of body fat , and show of the muscles you gained in that six pack. Well first off, I am going to tell you this. If you can’t see a six pack, and you want to, it’s your diet. Yup. You think you eat really healthy, whole wheat this and low carb that, and sugar free this. That’s not really the healthiest you could be eating. How about all natural this, and you are hearing it here first kids, fruits and veggies? Yup. The nutrients in fruits and veggies are going to help you get cut. As long as you are getting your muscle building protein, those fruits and vegetables are some of your best friends. Even though you probably don’t eat your other best friends, but hey, it’s 2010. I don’t know. Along with what you are eating, you might want to see what kind of workouts you are doing? Are you doing 45 minutes on the treadmill every day? No? Good, because that isn’t gonna be what the doctor orders here. Get crazy with some dumbells, learn how to do plyometrics under a personal trainer who has experience with them, and start doing interval training. If you don’t know what any of those are, stop working out. Just kidding. Some of them are pretty easy to learn. For example, interval training is when you do a very intense burst of exercise, say for 15-30 seconds, followed by a “rest” period of say 1-2 minutes, then you repeat for anywhere from 10-25 minutes. You can do this exercise on a bike, elliptical, jump rope, treadmill, etc. So, if you want to get the next part of the pool ready body going, you want to look into these things. Got it Jersey Shore?
Las Vegas Workout- Our 6 Week Challenge
Sunday, February 28th, 2010Hello from Las Vegas, my workout friends! Your personal trainer, Tony Cress, back again with some new news for your fitness fix. My partner in exercise crime, Emily Bussey, and I, have decided to take a workout challenge against each other. This may finally get my butt in gear, to reach my own fitness goals. I am going to have to work on my own nutrition, and figure out how to do all this with a bum neck and shoulder right now, as I’m pretty sure I may need some physical therapy. Anyway, we have six weeks to take on this challenge against each other, and there are benefits and consequences for the winner and the loser or the workout challenge. If you would like to see all the details, you can check it out on my youtube channel, and I will try to post that link right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkWf1tSEO58
Las Vegas Personal Training-It’s Not All Beach Muscles
Sunday, February 21st, 2010Through personal training, I have come to realize a few things. One of these things, is your workouts should not consist of just beach muscle exercise. I’m sure some of you know what this means, but not everybody. Beach muscle exercise, is basically exercises to make you LOOK good. Examples of this include bicep curls, bench press and situps. They work your ‘mirror muscles’. Stuff that when you look in the mirror, you can see. While that’s all well and good, there are muscles in your body that don’t involve what you can see on the outside. There are muscles in your shoulder region that allow you to do that bench press without your shoulder completely detatching. There are muscles in your legs and hips that allow you to land from a jump without breaking your ankles. The sad thing is, in todays world of fitness, most people are only looking for what makes them look pretty, not what helps them live a productive injury free life. You need to work out the muscles that allow your beach muscles to do what they do, otherwise, you are looking at injury down the road. These stabilization muscles play a major role in what that six pack looks like, and whether or not you look like igor, or a proud peacock. So your next workout, try this simple tip. For every exercise you do that you are standing, stand only on one foot. Let me know how that goes. And also, make sure you decrease the weight by about 15%.
Las Vegas Personal Training- These Crazy Videos.
Sunday, February 14th, 2010Personal Training, has evolved over the years. There is so much going on now with fitness, and so many different options, that who knows where the good trainers are. I look around Las Vegas, for example, and there are tons of personal trainers. In shape, out of shape, old, young, new and veteran. Lots of choices. Then there are these at home “personal trainers“. I’m talking about all these new exercise videos. Complete programs, nutritionally, and fitness wise. Basically takes the work out of everything. They just tell you what to do. I have a problem with this for a few reasons. I’ve watched a couple of the videos, and though they do have some good principles, and some great exercises, some things come to mind when i watch the actual workouts. People tell me, “Oh yeah, it’s kickin my ass”, or “I couldn’t even get through the whole yoga video”. I think that may be a problem. I watched an “abs” video on one of these programs. Now, I have a six pack myself, and I think if i did this whole abs workout, myabs may rip apart. It was 15 minutes, of non stop exercises. Of course you are going to be sore. I could tell you to do 5000 pushups right now, and guess what, you would probably be sore….. REALLY sore. But is that going to progress you, or get you in better shape? Maybe, but probably not. My point of this is, these workouts, just off what I’ve seen, are not designed for the average person trying to lose weight. They aren’t even designed for the average in shape person. They are basically a classic case of overtraining, which, will probably get you in pretty good shape at first, but then overtraining injuries will develop. When you push your muscles too far past their limit, compensations occur, then you start moving in a way that your body is not designed to do, just to finish the exercises. Later, you’ll wonder why your back hurts, or your knees kill. I’m not saying there isn’t something to learn from these workout videos, but I don’t know if they are the healthiest way to go about getting in shape. If these work for you, I am happy for you. But if you think that these videos are just too hard, they probably are. I don’t want to stall anyone from their fitness goals, so if you are already doing this, keep it goin gangsta. But don’t just jump into any of these videos, without seriously taking a look at the progressions of them, and making sure they are safe for your fitness levels.
