I’m going to start this episode with a story from my high school days, that has very little to do with fitness, but bear with me, I bring it back around.  

Isometric strength training is definitely non-traditional, it is a way to strengthen your muscles without actually moving them.  This means contracting or flexing your muscles without moving any part of your body.

There are a lot of people in this world and I think for the most part we are all chasing the same thing and that is to be happy and be healthy, at the end of the day if you’re both of those things you’re doing alright.

But back to your question David, if you’re building a home gym you need to look at your goals and what you already have in your house to decide what type of equipment you need. If your goal is to just be a healthier person, remain independent and make activities that require effort much easier you don’t need to purchase any equipment.

Ok, having this skin or adipose tissue that hangs over the front of your mid-section is really common after pregnancy and sometimes it can be made worse by the scar of a c-section, making it uneven. Because fat does not form the same way under scar tissue or over your muscle that has been literally cut, it can make it look even more uneven or a bit ‘extra hangy’. Even if you lose weight it still won’t be as ‘tight’ looking as the other parts of your body.

For the most part these videos are really good, Fitness Blender is probably the current marketplace leader on youtube, and they’ve built a massive following, they make the world a healthier place. But if you’re trying to change your body composition, doing these follow along videos will only take you so far.

Variety just means different ways of training, of course you have variety between exercise types whether you’re doing cardiovascular training, strength training or mobility training, but there are also several different ways you can add variety into each of these training modalities.

An account-i-billi-buddy is someone you not only exercise with but also talk to about exercise philosophies, you lean on each other when one of you doesn’t feel like working out, you spot each other and offer each other encouragement to make sure you’re getting maximum effort out of your fitness routine. Also, there is strength in numbers and having someone to lean on to help you figure this stuff out can be really helpful especially if you’re nervous about taking your first exercise steps. Simply put an account-i-billi-buddy is someone you exercise with, but in order to have a successful relationship with this person you need to make sure it’s a right fit for both of you, so these are some things you need to look for in a person you want to exercise with.

Going to the gym has a lot of great benefits, they have lots of equipment and weights, it’s easier to get into the frame of mind to exercise, sometimes you meet friends and have groups of people that are trying to overcome some of the same challenges you face.

When most people think of flexibility they think of their ability to touch their toes, which probably comes from high school gym class because that was the test for flexibility, but flexibility is so much more than that, it’s your ability to reach behind you or to reach low enough to pick something up off the ground without hurting your back.  Flexibility and mobility go hand in hand because you want to be able to move well and this goes beyond being able to touch your toes because you need to move all the parts off your body, your shoulders, ankles, hips, wrists and your neck.  If you’re going to stay functional good mobility is required through all your joints not just your lower back.

Before we get into this I need to throw a disclaimer up, this is not my area of expertise, so what I’m going to do is give you some possibilities so you can explore them with your personal health team.

Based on the email Joanne sent us I think this is what she is actually asking.

‘I feel like I’m starving myself and I’m still not losing any weight, I’m at the end of my road and I don’t know what to do anymore, can you help me?’

Does a workout have to be at least 30 minutes long to be effective? The short answer to your question is No it doesn’t but it really depends what you want, If you’re an elite athlete then no it won’t be enough, if you’re just trying to live a healthy life then it probably is.  There are are several considerations you have to make in deciding how long a workout should be.

There are a couple of things we need to cover here, the first being for most people there is nothing inherently dangerous with losing weight quickly, but you should check with your doctor first in case it is for your individual circumstance.  But for the most part if losing weight quickly was dangerous for everyone gastric bypass surgery wouldn’t exist.

Unless you and your partner together decide to make a change or live a certain way, you probably won’t get buy-in from your partner, so you need to find work arounds if you want to stay with that person. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned you can’t change someone that doesn’t want to change, and most people don’t want to, but here’s my best guess for how you can make it work.

We're doing this episode because you have a box of what exercise is in your mind, not a literal box a metaphorical one, it’s a story you tell yourself about what exercise is. Where you've come to the conclusion that there are only one or two ways to exercise.I think we really need to broaden the definition of exercise. 

But at a certain point you might ask yourself ‘I’m doing all this running and can go really far, but why am I not getting any faster? So these are the top six strategies you can use to run faster, you can try as many of them as you like, each one should be good to add a little bit of speed to your runs. 

So do you have to eliminate carbohydrates to lose weight, the short answer to this is no way and anyone that says otherwise is ignorant to the science behind weight loss and may or may not have alternative motives to try and sell you something like a book. I can say this with 100% certainty, because I lost 30 lbs. over the last 5 years and 60% of my caloric intake comes from carbohydrates

Today’s question is really basic, but there are a couple of possible answers because it depends on a few factors. The first thing I want to throw out is unless you are an elite or professional athlete where every calorie you eat is being accounted for and you’re on a very strict exercise routine you do not need to eat directly after a workout for quote ’recovery purposes’. For the average person it will make no difference at all, how you recover depends a lot more on what you eat for the rest of the day and how much sleep you get at night.

Brenda thank you for sending this question, it’s an important one that I should have answered right on the show.  We’ll start with this one, how do you find your race pace? The one problem with race pace is that it can be hard to figure out

This is a really common question we get and one that requires our attention because it’s really important and you want to exercise when it is the most beneficial for you.

Dr. James Levine is a renowned medical doctor and researcher in nutrition and metabolism. He is the inventor of the treadmill desk and has authored several books including the one we’re talking about today, ‘Get Up!’. Dr. Levine’s ‘tongue in cheek’ style is both entertaining and hard hitting.

All this to be said you can’t just say strength training or cardiovascular training burns more calories than the other because it depends on a lot of factors.It depends how high your heart rate goes, when you strength train it depends how long your breaks are, it depends if you do compound movements or isolated ones, it depends if you go to your max. If you’re doing cardiovascular training it depends how much resistance there is, I mean are you biking up the hill or down it?

Now I want to talk about some things that might make you feel like you’re taking control and responsibility but it is a very ineffective way to do it.  What many people do is they recognize that they need to take responsibility which is the needed first step. For some people that means, going out to buy a gym membership, ordering some in-home fitness equipment, hiring a personal trainer to work with them or maybe signing up for a club like Weight Watchers. For many people this is a good first step and is required, except what you’ve done is gone out and bought the tool first.

The first question you need to ask yourself is why are you exercising? If you're exercising just to be healthier and to live a longer life you probably don't need to feel sore. Around the world there are pockets of populations called blue zones where they have high percentages of people that live to be over the age of 100 and one of the things that every one of these populations has in common is they do over an hour a day of moderate exercise plus they have lots of low level activities built into their everyday lives but not enough that they ever feel sore. These people are over 100 and a lot of them live relatively independently with family, so they’re well enough to still do chores and more or less take care of themselves. 

Getting a stitch in your side can be really discouraging because it hurts a lot and can make you want to stop, which is the worst thing you can do, if you stop running or walking every time you get a stitch you will never be able to break through that barrier. Getting a stitch in your side when running is very common, especially when you haven't exercised in a while.