Monthly Archives: March 2011

Okay, I had a client join us recently and again was faced with the misconception that you have to lose weight by reducing the calories to a really low amount. Even some doctors prescribe really low calorie diets to their patients to  have them lose weight. Well, it does work, at least initially but then the patients gain it all back and more than that. I guess it keeps the business going. Here is my take on it: This is not the way of doing it. You did not gain the weight over night and you are not going to lose the weight over night. Here is what you should do:

1. Consistency is the key, plan your weight loss in small steps.
2. Adjust your eating by cutting out sodas, diet drinks and sweets. A good way to start is pretty simple if your food does not look like food, meaning it is highly processed try to eliminate it. Initially it might be difficult but after a while your palate will be more sensible and you won’t crave processed foods anymore.
3. Increase your vegetable intake and decrease your intake on rice or potatoes.
4. Decrease your fat intake.
5. Often these steps are not enough, simply because we have no measurement of how much we ought to eat.  Restaurants serve us too much and we forgot how big a portion really should be. Sites like 411fit.com or mydailyplate.com can help big time.
6. Now to the exercise part: Exercise regularly, have at least 2-3 days of resistance training for at least 30 min and 4-5 days of cardiovascular training for 30 min minimum.

If you have any question about personal training or boot camps, feel free to contact me or one of my personal trainers.

Michael

I was recently at the Running Medicine Update 2011 Conference and took some valuable information home with me. One of the most discussed topic at the moment is the difference between rear-foot striking and fore-foot striking and what is actually better for you.

Biomechanical Analysis at the moment show no evidence of the superiority of fore-foot striking versus rear foot striking in regards of injuries and speed. Of more importance were other mechanics.

1. Increasing the cadence the cadence reduces the rise and fall of center of mass which implicates a lesser metabolic effort. The optimal cadence is (88-92/min). Once the cadence is above 94/min the metabolic output is increased.
2. There also seems a significant decrease in loading to the hip and knee when running at a higher cadence.
3. The benefit of shorter strides seem to increase with higher run mileage.
4. Running barefoot is not necessarily better than shod. Just because you run barefoot does not mean your running style improves as measurements with force-plates have shown.
5. More research into the field is still needed.
6. Running barefoot seems to decrease the VO2 at the time due to lesser weight on the food.
7. Shod running:
   1. increased knee flexion torque – 36%
   2. increased knee varus torque – 38%
   3. Increased hip internal rotation torque – 54%
8. More research needs to be done to find out if those differences cause injuries.
9. Should you make changes changes to your running make sure they are gradual and be aware that as of the moment cadence and stride length may be more important than strike pattern.

 I am very careful if/when I change the running style of a personal training client and usually leave everything alone as long as the client does not have any pain or other issues that needs to be addressed.