Justin G. Walls, Certified Personal Athletic Trainer

  Do you know what you could be doing better? Here's some resources on men's health: 1. Men’s Health Network –  www.menshealthnetwork.org 2. MHN YouTube –  www.youtube.com/user/MHNMedia 3. Men’s Health Resource Center –  www.menshealthresourcecenter.com 4. Show Us Your Blue –  www.twibbon.com/Support/mens-health-awareness Here's a few great outdoor ideas for June: Out and around the DMV (DC MD VA) C&O Canal Trails  http://www.nps.gov/choh/planyourvisit/park-brochures-and-site-bulletins.htm Great Falls Park VA  http://www.nps.gov/grfa/index.htm Georgetown Waterfront Park  http://www.georgetownwaterfrontpark.org/ WB&A Trail  http://www.pgparks.com/Your_Parks/Trails/Washington__Baltimore___Annapolis_htm.htm (note: the link to download the map is actually on the right)

ACSM's Most Popular Fitness Trends For 2014 Which one are you going to try? One of the biggest problems with fitness is workout boredom. Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised that in the "vine" generation, we are seeing a resurgence of interval training, specifically high intensity interval training ( HIIT ). You can read the ACSM press release  for their top ten trends, which seem to follow a specific pattern: Get the workout done fast Get the best possible results for your investment Use as little or as simplistic (perhaps inexpensive) equipment as possible Have a certified professional guide your workout Workout in groups Put the "fun" in functional It shouldn't be a surprise that two of the most popular fitness trends are CrossFit and P90X, with their emphasis on basic exercises with minimal equipment. It should be noted that the "basic" exercises in CrossFit are actually quite challenging, including many Olympic style l...

Over the years, we have thrown around words like 'VO2 Max', Resting Heart Rate, Oxygen Intake, and so on. I actually blogged about this about a year ago  How to ACTUALLY go from Couch to 5k , and I had some funny pictures of Homer Simpson running and a cool chart showing oxygen intake and deficit relationship. Today, I am going to give you some tools on how to calculate VO2 Max, make it meaningful to you, and have you start making any necessary changes to your lifestyle to get you feeling your 'fitness' age. What's your fitness age? Let's start with VO2: this is the volume of oxygen your body will use in one minute. It's the ratio between the amount of oxygen in the air you inhale divided by the amount of oxygen in the air you exhale, all during the course of one minute. To save you the thousands of dollars it would cost to measure this with specialized equipment, some fantastic sport scientists have developed some simple formulas that you can use to...

Last week, there was yet another article  in the WaPo Health section about the benefits of going gluten-free. Sports Illustrated had an article about gluten-free athletes  a couple of years ago, touting the benefits of freeing up your body's metabolism from the breakdown of gluten in the intestine to more athletic performance work (reallocating scarce resources in the body makes sense right?). I shoulda eaten more carbs... To be fair, nobody is advocating carb-free diets for athletic performance. In "Endurance Sports Nutrition", Dr. Eberle points out that the science is pretty straight forward on this: you need carbs to perform and keep you going for the long haul until the body can access glycogen stores, but carbohydrates are the main thing that will keep you in the long races. You can read more about this  from the publisher's website What we are discussing is whether gluten, being a difficult protein to break down, can slow you down just a little. In...

Use Breathing to Relieve Stress Ever notice how athletes will take a breath or two before going for the big play? Breathing is one of the easiest ways to relieve stress. You can read up on stress and the different forms of relief at this great article on Bodybuilding.com . I want to focus on a simple technique to reduce stress and light anxiety. Firstly, breathing is a stress response as part of our natural "fight or flight" response. However, we are able to access this response and slow our own breathing to reduce the hormone secretion during a stress response. Controlling breathing will also regulate heart rate and blood pressure. Combining breathing techniques with exercise is an added effective technique at changing our overall pathology of stress relief which usually manifests itself as neck and shoulder pain, which can be relieved through good old fashioned "talking about your stress". Research has shown that punching a bag, for example, my actually reli...

New Five minute Workout! For a longer workout, do this multiple times! Warm- up with :20 Jumping Jacks, :20 High Knees, and :20 Jump Squats Find a couch and let's do tricep dips for :30 Drop to the floor, and do some mountain climbers for :30 Move those legs fast! Let's do some pause push-ups for 1:00 At the bottom of your push-up, keep your chest a few inches from the floor, arms bent, count to 5 SLOWLY, then press up We're half way there! Let's stand up and do some walking lunges, prisoner style for 1:00 Find a box somewhere in your house, or just stack a bunch of books and get ready to do deadlifts for :30 It is important to maintain proper form. Keep you back straight and push your hips back for full leverage.  Stand up straight to complete the movement.                                     ...

In an excellent social experiment,  TCU scientists  discovered that people were less likely to overeat when confronted with how long it would take to "walk off" the food they were eating. The study comes in the wake of the Affordable Care Act requiring calories be displayed on the food. The journal article can be found  here This image is from Scientific American's article on the subject. You can see how the calories "jump off the page" when confronted with the prospect of having to walk off everything you just ate. You can use this  exercise calorie calculator  to see how long it can take you to burn off breakfast lunch or dinner with a large variety of exercises

Simple, five minute workout when you can't get to the gym I actually use this workout as part of the warm up to my kickboxing class It hits pretty much every major muscle group, and gets your body loose for hours afterwards 5 Exercises, 5 minutes 1. 15 push-ups When  I say push-ups , I mean solid ones. Like the ones in this video. Body is straight. You go down straight. You come up straight. 2. 45 seconds Mountain Climbers Quick transition from push-ups, because it is in the same plank position Increase your speed for more intensity 3. Alternating Side Planks   Great Way to fire up your core for rotation. Engage, and then switch sides You can either time this for 30 seconds, or do ten on each side 4. 15 Squats   These need to be squats that bring your thighs parallel with the floor     5. 15 Lunges, left leg and right leg   Legs should be set at right angles, pelvis at a neutral position, moving fixed up and down in a strai...

Normally, people think of exercisers as those who work hard, train hard, and eat like there won't be food tomorrow. Take for example, the Michael Phelps breakfast of champions: So that's what gold medal swimmers eat The NY Times Health Blog referenced a recent study from some University of Wyoming professors that demonstrates the opposite. Apparently, running would cause both men and women to reduce the calorie intake of their next meal by almost 100 more than someone who had just exercised by walking, and way more than someone who was totally sedentary. You can read the full study here . The study looked at some of the hormone and peptide production resulting after the two types of workouts. The result of running left the volunteers consuming fewer overall calories and making their calorie consumption much better regulated. The article quotes Prof. Catia Martins as saying: Exercise “improves the body’s ability to judge the amount of calories consumed and to adjust fo...

AN ALL BOSU WORKOUT: Round One:  10-15 BOSU Push-ups (dome side down, hands on BOSU base) :30 seconds BOSU Mountain Climbers 10-15 BOSU Push-ups (dome side up, feet on dome) :30 seconds BOSU Mountain Climbers 10 BOSU Crossover Push-Ups (dome side up, one arm on BOSU, other on floor. Switch for each repetition) :30 seconds BOSU Mountain Climbers    Round Two:  15 BOSU Forward Lunge R & L :30 BOSU Power Skip (see Video below for progressions) 15 BOSU Uneven Squats (Right foot on BOSU, left on floor, then vice versa) :30 BOSU Power Skip 15 BOSU Reverse Lunges R&L :30 BOSU Power Skip Power Skip Video Reverse Lunge Forward Lunge   CHECK OUT ROUND THREE BELOW PICS Round Three BOSU Bicycles BOSU Crunches 30 BOSU Crunches (sit on the third ring from bottom, legs bent, feet on floor, crunch abs) :30 BOSU Bicycles 30 BOSU Leg Raises :30 BOSU Bicycles :30 BOSU Flutter Kicks (like bicycles, but fl...

I haven't put a new workout up in a while. This is really just a vanity muscle workout for tone and muscle development, but done quickly can break out a major sweat. That means- don't stop to chat between sets, but just crush this workout! 15 minute arm work out- crush 'em!!! Super fast tricep and bicep workout: First round: Preacher curls and triceps dips 10 tricep dips- works long head of tricep You can also use an assistance machine or bench like this picture 10 preacher curls - this will work long head of the bicep   Repeat these two exercises as a superset (dips then curls) for three sets Second Round: Standing bicep curls and posterior tricep extenstions 10 standing bicep curls Try to keep your elbows down at your side for this exercise. It will work the short head of the bicep 10 tricep extensions- works short head of the tricep Keep your back straight and extend both arms back on this exercise. Squeeze your arm at full exte...

New Fifteen Minute Workout!!! Warm up: give yourself about two minutes worth of jumping jacks, but try to hop in different planes of movement. Try standard jumping jacks, then try to switch the timing of arms and legs, and then try scissors jacks switching arms and legs back and forth. Add some twists: make the warm up different. Workout: This workout is all about unilateral movements- we are using one limb at a time. Left leg lunges- step the left leg forward, bend both knees to 90 degrees, and finally return to a standing position. Repeat for one minute Right leg lunges- same as above, repeat for one minute. For more of a balance challenge, hold your arms up above your head Left arm clean and press- using a dumbbell or any weight you have around the house (a gallon bottle of water, for example), squat down low with the goal of touching the weight to the floor, followed by standing up and pressing your weight overhead. Repeat for one minute. Right arm clean and press- same...

The NY Times  has an article from this week about training with kettlebells, and how successfully training with them can reduce back pain by training the posterior core muscles that are often weakened by long hours of leaning of desks and computers at work. The best exercise for relieving back pain is the Kettlebell Swing: When the Swing is executed correctly, it incorporates every posterior chain muscle, loosens tight hip muscles, and improves abdominal strength. The back is kept straight through the movement and the head is always 'looking down field'. Knowing the correct weight and proper form are important to correct execution of the Kettlebell Swing requires some flexibility and patience with getting the form. 

People always ask, "How much exercise do I need to get?" There are actually different answers to that question: Average healthy adult under 65: The ACSM recommended  minimum exercise is 30 minutes of cumulative activity, five days every week. That's either 30 minutes on a treadmill, walking, jogging, or whatever activity that is a) cardiovascular and b) moderate intensity. This recommendation of ACSM is approved by many national health organizations, including the American Heart Assoc. (AHA) Strength training: Strength training makes a body look strong, lean, and upright with good posture. Strength training also has the important benefit of averting lean muscle loss. Lean tissue atrophies after age 25 in both men and woman, but takes a precipitous loss in men after 35 years of age. Weight lifting and axial loading stimulates bone growth, which is important as the rates of occurance in osteoporosis have become more common and prevelent in both genders at very young ages...

This isn't exactly a chance to fight Apollo Creed for the heavyweight championship of the world, but it is an opportunity to work on cardiovascular endurance, speed, coordination, bone density, and self-esteem. Let's talk about each of these life-changing benefits: Cardiovascular Endurance It cannot be stressed enough that the best way to prevent the onset of obesity and all of its negative attributes is by engaging in regular exercise . The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 30 minutes each day, five days every week. Regular endurance training enables the heart to become more efficient at pumping blood, even if there are no noticeable signs of physical improvement. The heart gets stronger with every endurance workout. Here's the great thing about martial arts and boxing- lots of continual movement equals anywhere from moderate to intense exercise. Speed and Coordination As a conditioning term, speed refers to how quickly you can get from point A to poin...