Justin G. Walls, Certified Personal Athletic Trainer

A Few Ways to Maintain or Lose Weight Fast These short activities can add up every day to burn more calories More than half of everyone who joins a gym or other workout facility leaves after their first year, even with a strong commitment to weight loss. We've discovered that there are a few things that can increase your everyday calorie burn, improve your body's energy consumption, and maintain muscle tone even though you're not making it in to the gym or seeing a trainer right now. 1. Stand up at least once every 30 minutes Standing up increases the pressure in your circulatory system, and this helps to reinforce the pressure of this system. Small changes in blood pressure are a way to stimulate cardiac (heart) muscle and arterial walls, as well as the valves responsible for maintaining blood flow. Having reduced pressure in the circulatory system can lead to cardiovascular problems, such as shortness of breath when walking or other moderate activities. It ...

It's Not Just For Your Home Here's a few simple changes you can make starting tomorrow Thanks to the wonderful snowstorm today, I've had the opportunity to make over my blog to better serve you guys. So it got me thinking: what are a few things I could do better for you, and, more globally, what are things we could do better for ourselves as spring hopefully approaches (swiftly!) Firstly: I've added a page where you can go look at all of these products I mention on this blog. You can check it out here . This way, when I add a new workout for a BOSU or recommend a foam rolling position, you can just go look at one and then order it if you'd like. Secondly, I've simplified the layout so it's easier to find my older posts Finally, I've added an easy way to sign up via email. It was impossible to locate before. We will lose the sleek and dynamic layout in favor of functionality for now. And now- on to a few quick tips to get read...

5 Minute Core Workout! Try one, two, or three rounds 1:00 Push-Up With Opposite arm and leg Raise   Start with both arms and legs on the floor, perform one push-up, and finish the push-up by lifting opposite arm and leg (pictured).  :30 Single Leg Squat Right   :30 Single Leg Squat Left              Use a bench, couch, or whatever you find stable.              Shift your weight to your toes as you stand up. To modify, place your straight leg's heel on the floor to assist you as you stand up   1:00 Alternating Side Planks     Start with arms straight as pictured, transition to side plank on right arm, return to straight arm plank, switch to side plank on left arm 1:00 Jump Squats     I think the picture says it all. :30 Side Plank Toe Touch     You can go into the side plank either on your hand or on your forearm. Raise your upper le...

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...

Understanding the Zombie Teen's Body Clock - WSJ.com Hey everyone, since we talked about it a few weeks ago, I thought I would share another article on sleep. Sleep is so important for normal metabolic function. I can tell you that I am guilty of not getting enough sleep too. It's something all of us should work on. This article focuses on its affect for teens and how sleep rhythms affect performance during the day. The study is eye-opening.We'll be back next week with a new workout and some health tips. In the mean time, get some rest!

Robert Irvine, Master Chef on Food Network Robert Irvine, famous Food Network chef of shows like "Restaurant:Impossible", is no stranger to having to get way too many things done in a short amount of time. His show focuses on him getting tough jobs done in very short amounts of time. He was recently interviewed about his workout routine because this master chef is buff! Irvine, age 47, says that he has switched to lighter weights but regular workout routines at 5:00 am every morning. The important thing to note is that this guy is always looking for a gym everywhere he goes during his 330 days on the road, and takes some of his crew with him. In his shows, he generally gets to his destination at 7:00 am, and before you know it, he's hard at work getting the impossible job done. Lesson learned: you can get it done. He has also shared details about his workout and his commitment. From IdeatFit,com: I do between 45 minutes to 1 hour of very light weights, but ...

The Washington Post  quotes a survey that many people, for various reasons, are reporting trouble with getting a good night's sleep. Sleep is an important part of normal biological function, helps with recovery, and contributes to proper metabolic function. Not sleeping enough at night can impact a person's ability to think clearly, perform tasks efficiently, affects focus and attention, and it makes you yawn an awful lot! Sleep- it's good for you! A excellent research project of the NIH in its Sport's Medicine journal chronicals many of the issues related to interupted sleep patterns as a result of shift work ( link for article ). Some negative affects of altered behavioral patterns, such as eating at night (mentioned in section 2.2) have links to obesity because of the low metabolic trends during the night hours. As the paper does note, there was some difficulty in gaining access to enough participants to fully study the effects of nocturnal workers versus th...

Act of Valor star Lt. Cmdr. Rorke explained some basic rules for Men's Health Magazine to create a mentality and lifestyle that sets you up to not only achieve fitness goals, but also some life goals. Strive for something - set a plan on reaching for an achievement, whether an amount of weight to lose, a distance to run, or a weight to lift. This can prepare you for getting up and completing your task, as long as you believe in completing it. Then strive for more- always challenge yourself to believe that you can accomplish more than what you are doing right now Don't set limits- just keep trying until you can't go any further. You could be surprised at how much you can do if you just let yourself Work with someone better than you- that's right, you know they are better than you. Now try to beat them. With the attitude that you can always be better than where you are right now, you can make great strides and changes in your life. It's about the attitude. ...

It requires some thought in to why we do and don't do things. Exercise was not really much expected of the average person when there was so much labor to do around the home and job. Our evolution from labor based to service based industries has created a need for us to generate time for activity. Hence- our need for motivation. Exercise in ancient Greece, for example, was an ingrained part of the religion and culture. The Gymnasium was dedicated to physical perfection, but also developed into a meeting place of philosophers and educators. In some ways, exercise is a motivator today for people to look attractive, impress their friends, potential friends, or just to make people notice them. Vanity can motivate. Sometimes, it's just about pride. The thought of having to buy new clothes to make room for more of you is just not pleasant (especially when you see the selection available). In fact, some studies have demonstrated that monetary incentives have helped people lose...

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...

In a recent UCLA study , a variant in the oxytocin receptor gene has demonstrated different expressions of empathy and social skills. In their study, those with one type of variant were predisposed towards depression. Oxytocin is generally related to certain types of outgoing behavior, generousity, and is also known as the "cuddling gene" (from orginal tests that oxytocin made rats cuddle). The study sheds light on an issue that certain people may not have the same fundemental psychological tools to cope with stress and other life challenges, leaving them predisposed and tending toward symptoms of depression. It's important to note that, according to this study: nobody is doomed to fail. It just means that you have to stimulate your own production of oxytocin. In a study at  SUNY Stoney Brook , scientists were able to link dopamine and oxytocin production to people who had a real goal (specifically: this study was about "falling in love"). The production of th...

Sounds challenging? Not really. It requires some preparation. First off: you need to have some "me" time even on vacation. You may be with friends, family, whatever. Block out 30 minutes as "me" time. Second: shut off or put away the smartphone. They are great for keeping tabs on business while away, but for 30 minutes, you can "get away." Third: Locate the exercise area. Some facilities have a complimentary gym. If there isn't a gym. then you can try to find a local gym and ask about a day pass. Last resort: go for a run outside, initiate your own individual boot camp, or run up and down the stairs where you are staying. The worst thing that can happen is getting out of the routine. Vacationing should relieve stress from work. Stress causes tightening of blood vessels that can be counteracted through regular exercise. You have got to learn to love activity on your vacation time. Find something that you like, and go at it for 30 minutes.You will l...