Cycling: the Fountain of Youth!

You likely know that I'm passionate about cycling.  Well I thought I would share with you the results of some really interesting research on cycling and aging.

The study I'm referring to was published in the Journal of Physiology.  It involved 120 cyclists aged 55-79. Subjects were considered to be very fit: Men had to be able to cycle 100 km in less than 6.5 hours, and women 60 km in less than 5.5 hours.

One of the most fascinating results from the study was that researchers failed to find any of the obvious signs of aging that would normally be observed among people of the same age.  The group showed few of the typical signs of aging that it was not possible to make generalizations about the aging process.

What is going on here you might ask yourself?  Maybe dressing up in tight spandex is good for your health...haha

Here are a few of my favorite observations from the lead researcher of the study:

"We had assumed that there is a linear straight line decline in physiology with aging but that is very unlikely to be the case. We're not saying we're reversing aging but that cycling seems to optimize the aging process."

"Because most of the population is largely sedentary, the tendency is to assume that inactivity is the inevitable condition for humans. However, given that our genetic inheritance stems from a period when high levels of physical activity were the likely norm, being physically active should be considered to play an essential role in maintaining health and well-being throughout life."

"The main problem facing health research is that in modern societies the majority of the population is inactive. A sedentary lifestyle causes physiological problems at any age."

"Hence the confusion as to how much the decline in bodily functions is due to the natural aging process and how much is due to the combined effects of aging and in activity."

My take home thoughts:

• Exercise more.  Move more, your body was designed to move and be active.  Exercising for 60 minutes and then sitting at a desk all day won't cut it. Walk more, stand more, ride your bike to work
• Cycling is likely not the only form of exercise that helps to keep you young. What I think is likely a contributing factor to slowing the aging process is the amount of time cyclists spend cycling. (I ride at least 10 hours per week, often 15-20 hours).
• We don't really know the true effects of aging, so there is no reason why you can't start exercising more now and become/stay young for as long as you want.
• Ask me to join my awesome cycling club, "Fulgas Cycle Club"

Tips for maintaining health and fitness while travelling for work

Gone are the days of working only 9-5 and only from Monday to Friday.  It now seems close to a rarity that we see people leave their homes comfortably for work at 8:40am and leave peacefully from work at 5:00pm on the dot, then spend the rest of their day with their loved ones and not have to worry about an interruption until they return to work the next day.  In the 21st century, work has taken over the wee hours of the morning, extra time in the evenings, and even the occasional Saturday and Sunday for the business person.  In addition to these stresses, work and travel have now become hand-in-hand.

For people wanting to prioritize such that they can live fuller, happier, and healthier lives, travel can easily derail their good intentions.  Fear not.  I hope this non-exhaustive list of suggestions will help alleviate some concerns and worries for individuals needing to maintain their current health and fitness levels despite busy travel.

Prior to the Trip:

Chances are you will know in advance to which destination(s) you are traveling and what your agenda will look like.  Think of this as an opportunity to plan your schedule and give your good intentions a head-start:

1.  Inquire which hotels in your area of business have a gym, fitness center, and/or swimming pool.  At the very least, ask if there are any fitness centers located within the vicinity of your hotel.

2.   Ask if any of the hotel suites have a kitchen unit.  If so, you can plan your meals ahead of time by preparing your food in your hotel suite which will eliminate the need for unnecessary restaurant food.

3.  I am not going to preach to everyone that you must own a whole collection of dumbbells, kettlebells, and portable elliptical machines that you must take with you on your business trips.  However, there are numerous affordable gadgets that are conveniently suited for travel, many of which contribute to flexibility and the ‘stress relief’ variety.  Especially for people who will always travel regularly, it would be beneficial to invest in some of the following items:  A lacross ball or small baseball (myofascial release), a travel roller, a pair of runners, gym gear, a yoga mat, a toner band, and a pair of small dumbbells.

At Your Destination:

Now that you are at your business setting, kick your trip off right with the following tips:

1.  Bottom line – stay active.  Whenever time permits, go for a run or brisk jog.  If you have errands, instead of driving, walk to your desired stops.  If you must drive, park far away from the building so that you can add more walking steps to your day.  Opt to take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. 

2.  Now is the time to shop for some healthy foods to store in your hotel room and to bring with you during your work day.

3.  To keep your metabolism in high gear, try to eat healthy snacks every 3 hours during the day.  This will prevent you from a gigantic binge meal at the end of your long work day.

4.  Drink ample cold water to keep yourself hydrated, alert, productive, and your body systems cleansed. 

5.  There is a plethora of exercises that you can perform right in your hotel unit, no equipment required!  To name a few:   Pushups, split-squats (or split-squat leaps), squats, lunges, jumping jacks, and planks are great to perform in the suite to help maintain your fitness level.  And don’t forget, there is no better place or time to stretch on a business trip than in a peaceful suite at the end of your work day.

At a Restaurant:

Ok, I get it.  Sometimes dining out is just inevitable.  Whether it is a business meeting with prospective clients or an interview with a potential employer, dining at a restaurant during a business trip is oh so common.  This does not spell the end of your health goals.  Take a breath, relax, and try to incorporate the following precautions and tips:

1.  If you know that a restaurant meal is in the forecast of your day, try eating a small meal before you go to the restaurant to prevent overeating.

2.  Avoid (or, at the very least, limit) alcohol consumption.

3.  If you are not sure about the ingredients, contents, or how many calories are in a dish, ask your server for nutritional information, or look up the restaurant establishment online.

4.  Opt for more vegetables relative to the meats and starches on the order.

5.  If you need sauces or dressing in your food, ask for them on the side rather than having your meal drenched in them.

6.  Replace high fat and high sugar foods with healthier, nutrient-dense options.  For example, replace French fries with a side of salad.

7.  Watch for portion sizes!  Many restaurants like to serve their dishes in large plates to give the customer the illusion that the portion is small, when in reality it is probably significantly bigger than the average meal you would eat on your own. 

8.  Eat until you are satisfied; not when you are full.  There is no need to eat all the food on your plate.

9.  This piggybacks #8:  ask for a doggy bag when your meal arrives.  If you set aside some food from the start of your meal, the temptation to eat everything will decrease.   

10.  Eat slowly.  After your meal, take a break to make sure you are not still hungry before actually ordering dessert.

11.  If you must order dessert, try ordering fruit.

At Work (The Office):

This is arguably the most difficult time to practice healthy living patterns.  Although you cannot expect to be doing squat leaps in the middle of an important ground-breaking meeting with the CEO, try these little steps to help assist you on your path to consistent active living:

1.  Avoid or limit the amount of time you sit.  The ideal position for the human body is one that is dynamic and always changing.  In other words, whenever possible, be as restless as possible.  Get up and stretch every 20-30 minutes.  If you can analyze your work standing up, do so.  Walk to your coworker’s desk rather than sending them an email.  During your lunch break, spend a good chunk of it walking.

2.  Avoid the staff/kitchen room!  During business adventures, there tends to be quite a bit of sweet treats in the congregation area.  Resist the temptation!  This is where many people struggle.

Business trips can definitely throw a curve-ball at your health routine, but they do not necessarily have to wreck your healthy lifestyle completely.  If you put some of the above tips into practice, you will become an expert at always putting your most important desires on the top of your list:  Your health and fitness.  If you are already a health and fitness enthusiast, it will soon become second nature to always find the time to sneak in some exercises and to make better health decisions in the restaurant and at the office.     

Brandon 

Inspiration from Troy Dalton

A friend of mine in the financial planning business sent this out in his e-newsletter to clients.  I kinda liked it:

“Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has a bank. Its name is time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.”

Troy

The "Skinny" on Weight Loss and Exercise

Not everyone can be blessed with this type of physique.  Notice the trim cheeks and chiseled arms... 

November is our Fat Loss challenge month so I thought it would be appropriate to give my two sense on exercise, weight loss, and weight management.  These are 3 massive topics and I'm only going to give you a brief insight and my thoughts on each. 

Firstly for all of you interested in weight loss, let me set the record straight once and for all. 80% of weight loss comes down to what you eat (your diet). It doesn't matter how fit you are, you can't out run your fork.  Nutrition is really everything when it comes to losing weight, and the difficult thing is that not one method will work for everybody.  You're body is different and will respond differently than many others. "What are you saying," you might ask.  I'm a personal trainer and run a personal training business, and I'm telling you that exercise doesn't matter for weight loss...Is this guy nuts?

Here it is, exercise can help with weight loss, but maybe not entirely in the way you might think. There is no question, and I repeat, no question that exercise can directly impact weight loss, but more importantly exercise is the number one thing on the planet for your health.  Absolutely nothing is better.  Did you know that even 10 minutes of exercise can produce positive changes in the your brain?  Exercise is the number one thing you can do to improve mood, memory, and learning.  It has countless other health benefits, not to mention beating every prescription cholesterol drug, and being found as effective as any anti depressant medication.

There are many recent studies and articles that are telling us that exercise only marginally helps with weight loss, but where these studies fail is not looking at the indirect benefits of exercise. To effectively lose weight for the long term, you need to be realistic with your expectations.  You have to remember that sh#! happens in life and that when you celebrate the holidays, a wedding, the weekend you will typically eat and drink more that you should.  Don't worry about it.  If you are trying to lose weight you have to enjoy the process or it won't work.  This is where the indirect benefits of exercise come to play.  When you exercise and are fit your mood improves. It's much easier to do difficult things when you feel good and are happy. Being fit and healthy makes moving around easier and brings more enjoyment from your daily activities. Exercise helps to control appetite thereby enabling better portion control. Exercise improves confidence and that makes it easier to get back on track when life takes you away from your weight loss/weight management plan.

When you are looking to lose weight including exercise as part of your plan is essential both for it's direct and indirect influences, but remember that exercise on it's own is not an effective weight management tool. My advice at the end of the day is simple: educate yourself about nutrition, cook your own food as much as possible, exercise more (all types count: walking, riding, running, working out, doing yard work...)  and sit less.

Run Training: Spice up your run training program

I know many of our clients are training for various running races coming up this summer/fall, and as such I blogged about the importance of the aerobic system and of doing training sessions at a low HR. In order for your running (or cycling) to benefit from aerobic adaptations, training at a HR of roughly 180 minus your age is very important. After you have spent some time doing proper base (aerobic) training here are some runs that will push you outside your comfort zone and help with your speed and your anaerobic ability.

Continuous Hills

• Find a hill that takes about 60 seconds to run up
• Run hard up hill and jog back down right away
• Try to keep recovery jog around 75 seconds (no more than 90 seconds) and relax breathing during that time

The Workout:

• 10 minute warm up jog, and then start with
• 12 minutes of Continuous Hills
• *increase by 2 minutes each workout until you are at 20 minutes of Continuous Hills
• 10 minute cool down jog

Broken Kilometer

• On a track alternate running hard for 200 meters and running easy for 200 meters until you’ve run 1000 meters.
• For each ‘Broken Kilometer’ you will run hard during the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th 200 meters and easy for the 2^nd and 4^th 200 meters.
• The goal is to keep the 2/3 ratio of hard to easy running
• If you are running 4 minute kilometers then try to maintain running 40 seconds for the hard 200 meters and 60 seconds during the easy 200 meters (a 4-minute kilometer is pretty fast you will likely look to run closer to 5-minute kilometer)

Workout:

• 10 minute warm up jog
• 5 x 1000 meters
• 3 minute recovery between each km
• 10 minute cool down jog

A win tonight guarantees the Canadian Women a spot in London

GWA athlete Shannon Woeller is playing a big role in helping the Canadian Women's Soccer Team achieve it's goal of reaching the London Olympics.  Check out this article about her.

Two stunning victories for Canada - GWA Athletes get Gold

Shannon - 3rd player from the left

At the Pan Am games this past week Canada had two great victories for gold medals.  We beat the USA in men's baseball on Tuesday and Brazil in women's soccer on Thursday.  Both teams featured GWA athletes: Mark Hardy, a left hand pitcher for the baseball team, and Shannon Woeller, a defender for the soccer team.

Check out the article on the baseball game here

Check out the article on the soccer game here

JP to head up Strength and Conditioning for the Vancouver Whitecaps

Jon Poli has taken a job as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps residency program.  He spent 5 great years working for us and developing his craft.  This is a great opportunity for him.  Although we will be really sad to see him go, we wish him all the best.

Vancouver Sun Article

Check out the article on the Factory Hockey Training --GWA gets a mention!! Click HERE for the article

Jeff Tambellini Shootout Winner

Congrats to Vancouver Canuck Jeff Tambellini who scored the shootout winner on Wednesday vs the Anaheim Ducks. Below are two video's-the shootout and a taste of what he does with us in the off season to achieve his success.