re: How much exercise is enough?
This past week, I gave a presentation on how to include fitness and nutrition strategies into an already busy schedule. In it, I provided examples and case studies from the personal training clients I’ve worked with over the years.
One thing common amongst my personal training clients is that they are all professionals, mostly between the ages of 40 and 60. Many of them either have kids, hold down more than one job or are business owners like myself.
For me personally, I have 2 businesses (my personal training business, and a business as a professional entertainer for corporate, associations and education)
2 businesses and I have 2 young children. My youngest turned 6 months old the other day.
And technically, because I’m a professional athlete my training has to matter. I don’t really have time to waste on unproductive training methods.
So as I was perusing the interwebs looking for ideas about what to write about, I came upon an article called “how much exercise is enough?”
It’s kind of a loaded question really. The answer, like most things health and fitness related, is “It depends.”
I’ll give an example. A couple years back I had someone tell me “I train 6 days a week, 3 hours each time. I workout 10 times as hard as everyone else and I feel like I have nothing to show for it.”
I told him “I have some theories. But you probably aren’t going to like them.”
“Well what is it?”
“I think you’re overdoing it. You’re not giving your body a chance to catch up so it’s holding onto your body fat. With me, you’ll be training 30 minutes 3 times a week and nothing else except some easy walking to help with recovery”
He lost 18lbs in a month. But that was a bit of a unique situation because his body was so used to going hard all the time, that it had developed the ability to have a speedy recovery from training. Not all situations are like that.
However, you can still get great results on short programs. I have a guy training right now about 25 minutes twice a week. Is he going to get results like the Amazing 12? Not likely, but he’ll still get great results.
The Amazing 12 is a program that’s about optimizing everything involved in a body transformation. It’s about optimal technique, optimal nutrition and optimal progression of the loads. With all those things in place it creates such amazing results in a shockingly short amount of time.
But it also requires the optimal situation. It’s approximately 5 days a week in my personal training studio, plus cardio homework. Not everyone has a schedule that will allow it.
I have a personal training client right now who would have loved to do Amazing 12. He works full time, has a part-time job and is trying to build a business. Right now, Amazing 12 isn’t right for him.
So then optimal changes because it’s context-dependent. Optimal is the best answer for whatever the situation allows. For my guy, he trains approximately 25 minutes twice a week. It may not be the optimal situation but pretty good is still pretty good. He just told me he feels good and accomplished. Like I said, pretty good is still pretty good.
As far as how much is enough? Well, training is about coaxing adaptation from your body. Your body adapts by getting stronger, leaner, fitter etc.
And in order to get an adaptive response, you need to give it a stimulus to adapt to. You might be surprised how little you actually need.
People new to training can make especially fast gains. It isn’t uncommon for some of them to actually double their strength (based on how hard they perceive something to be) within the first month. And that is done with a low volume and generous rest periods.
So how much is actually enough? Whatever it is you can safely do that challenges you. Little hinges swing big doors over time.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
Biggest Loser 2020 – Fat Shaming and Dangerous
Truth be told, I haven’t even watched the full episode. I could barely get through the highlight reel during the show’s introduction before rolling my eyes.
Why?
Because I work as a personal trainer and helping people to lose weight, get fit and transform their bodies and therefore their lives is what I do. I wouldn’t simply be a viewer sitting at home watching tv. I see the way they train these people and I am absolutely appalled at their approach.
So a couple of things. The main argument for the benefit of this show is it inspires people to get in shape.
I really question that. For one thing, a lot of times when people are overweight, they know it, they don’t like it, they want to do something about it but they are either confused about what to do or completely overwhelmed by the perceived amount of work it would take to get healthy.
I think that for every person it inspires, it probably scares off a whole lot more. In the opening sequence, I saw a woman throwing up into a bucket and I know from previous seasons there is a high injury rate. Not to mention that previous contestants have been unable to maintain their weight.
Yeah, totally inspiring.
Second, for every person that actually makes a decision to get up and take back their health, that person is likely looking for ideas about how to train and eat. They see a severely overweight person do box jumps and think “Hey, that’s probably what I should do!”
Box jumps, in particular, are an exercise with a high risk to reward ratio. Even for a coordinated lean and athletic person, they don’t land quite right and they can gouge their shin, injure their knee, fall backward and hit their head, etc.
There is plenty that can go wrong with that.
Now you have someone who is likely uncoordinated, unsure of themselves and have extra weight and it’s not a matter of if they get injured, it’s when.
In Russia where plyometrics (box jumps are a form of plyometrics) was pioneered and studied they determined that a person wasn’t really ready for plyometrics unless they had a double bodyweight squat. The reason being their tendons hadn’t thickened enough yet.
Should a person that is just starting their fitness journey be doing this?
As with anything, start with where you are. Stay within your current capabilities and expand them. I’m not saying plyometrics are completely off the table…I’m just saying not right now.
I think a properly performed kettlebell swing can accomplish most of what box jumps can and more…and do it safely but that’s another article for another day.
Another thing is it sets up unrealistic expectations. For one thing everybody lives in a bubble set up for weight loss to occur, training 4 hours a day and taking drugs. This quite simply doesn’t fit with the lifestyle requirements of most people (having a job, a family etc.).
Here’s another article about it https://nypost.com/2015/01/18/contestant-reveals-the-brutal-secrets-of-the-biggest-loser/
Second thing is that it will show things like them losing 10lbs per week. The truth is the weekly weigh-ins are actually closer to monthly weigh-ins. Why? I don’t know, filming schedules? That’s Hollywood for ya.
And one last thing. The supposedly world-class trainers. Fat-shaming banshees with either questionable knowledge or questionable ethics, possibly both.
For a person that is looking to start their fitness journey, they might admit to themselves that they need help (a monumental step). They might even push through their apprehension of picking up the phone to reach out to a personal trainer to help them.
But then again, that apprehension may cause them to second guess whether or not they are willing to put up with being yelled at and shamed, and they put the phone back down reverting back to their old ways. That’s a person that could have benefitted from my approach, a bit more conservative but consistent and more positive.
If that person is you, you can do it. Take it step by step, build upon your current capabilities, hang in there and one day you’ll wake up look in the mirror and say “Damn! You got it going on!!!”
If you need my help, send me a text at 973 476 5328.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
Kettlebell Swings, Sex Appeal and the Superbowl
Today is Tuesday, 2 days after the Superbowl and after seeing the thoughts of several people I thought I might weigh in with my own thoughts. If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you might know I try to use things like this as an opportunity to teach.
First, there was a commercial that featured one of my favorite exercises the kettlebell swing. Unfortunately anytime I see this done by anything resembling mainstream media it’s always butchered.
Yeah, don’t do it that way. The swing is a hip hinge, not a squatting overhead front raise. That is both a back injury and a shoulder impingement waiting to happen.
Do it this way instead. This is the safe and effective way of doing it. Also the woman in the video below was actually one of my instructors when I originally went through the kettlebell personal training certifications back in 2009. With the kettlebell swing, the devil is in the details.
Also one of the things that seem to have people talking is both the sexually suggestive nature of the halftime show and how good Shakira and Jennifer Lopez looked at the age of 50 ish I think.
About the sexually suggestive nature…whatever. I’ve seen worse, we all have. And I’m not a fan at all of their music, I’d much rather see Metallica up there.
And in terms of how good they looked. I’ve seen worse.
I’m not going to say it was all done completely naturally because truth be told, it’s highly unlikely. But I will say that having a sound weight training program alongside healthy nutrition can go a long way to making you look good, feel good and move well as you age.
Here is where the geeky stuff comes in. Have you ever noticed that some people age better than others? There is something called your chronological age, and another called your biological age.
Basically one is how many years you’ve been alive, and the other is how your cells and your body age. See this link for a bit more on this https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-chronological-age-2223384
Anyway, there is something in our cells called telomeres that break down as we get older chronologically. As these break down, this is known as our biological age (how old we seem compared to how old we are).
Weight training and cardiovascular training along with healthy nutrition can go a long way towards preserving these telomeres and hence slowing down how we appear to age. This could be one of the reasons that Shakira and Jlo look like they are in their 30’s. I’m pretty sure both of them have full-time personal trainers.
And another thing is that when you train and eat healthily you age with dignity. We’ve all seen people who have taken the plastic surgery thing way to far and instead look like a clown.
On the other hand, we all have seen the ones who simply dedicated themselves to training, eat healthily and even though they are older they still look amazing. And weight training transfers to way more things than plastic surgery does.
Strength gives confidence that transcends the way you look, it has a freedom that comes with it because you are capable of more than you knew before.
The key thing is to quite simply get started. If you need my help let me know.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.