A little Taste of what is to come

The New Fit site launches full time March 1st, 2008. However, it should be on the web as soon as early February. Enjoy!

Hale Breakfast!!

Since breakfast is the first meal of the day it is the most important. Its the fuel for our day. It starts and regulates our metabolism for the day. Without it our body has to breakdown important bodily tissues like muscle protein, in order to energize it self. Obviously this is not ideal for anyone looking to build lean muscle. Nor is a low metabolism ideal for anyone looking to burn fat. Now I know you say you don't have time for breakfast, and your just too busy. Well make time. Spare 15 minutes and your on the road to great health.

Here are some breakfast ideas:

• Whole grain cereal with skim milk, bananas and strawberries
• An egg on a whole grain English Muffin with low-fat cheese and a tomato
• Slice of ham, an egg and lowfat cheese in between two slices of whole grain toast
• Vanilla protein powder, strawberries, a banana, flax seed oil, and oatmeal all blended together (small amount of green tea and/or a "greens" supplement optional for added nutrients)
• Eggwhite/Avacodo Omelete: 3-4 egg whites, 1/2 avacodo, lowfatcheese, optional salsa

There, I named 5 breakfast options that take less than 10 minutes to make, which leaves 5 mintues for eating. Now go eat breakfast!!

Why you should take rest days from lifting and/or exercising.

Many "gym rats" go into the gym with one goal in mind, lift as much weight as possible until I can lift anymore. That is a great way to recieve an amazing strength response. Pushing the nervous system and the muscular system to the max is the best way to push your muscle strength and endurance levels through the roof. However, if this is done day after day week after week, your body will burn out. Unless you are on performance enhancing drugs, the stress and lack of recovery will catch up with you.

The nervous system needs anywhere from 48 to 72 hours to recover from an extremely intense stressful situation such as maximal weightlifting. If you go pound out sets of benchpress day after day, there is no room for recovery and you chances of burnout and many times serious injury skyrocket.

The muscular system is a little more tricky. Some muscle energy stores can be replenished in seconds, some need more time. Either way nutrients is the key here. The muscles get there energy from carbohydrate calories, and they rebuild muscle proteins by using, you guessed it, protein. So often your training will depend on the amount of necessary nutrients you are taking in. Simply, if your training is intese, take in more carbohyrdates so you have the energy to train; and take in more protein to rebuild broken down muscle protein. Soreness can have an affect on mental state too. If you are really sore from and intense bout of exercise, it is difficult to fight through the pain to get in a good workout. Light body weight movements have been shown to flush muscle waste products at the end of a workout, as well as help maintain flexibility and nutrient transport in the following days.

My cheesy rule of thumb. If your muscles ache, take a break!

The Almightly Foam Roller

Every time we bear any weight on a muscle it contracts to support that weight. Any time we move a body part, the muscle must contract to move the weight of part. If we lift, push or pull an object many muscles contract to perform the task. After time the repetative contractions of our muscles build up scar tissue and adhesions. These issues can disrupt the function of the muscle causing tightness in certain areas, which limits range of motion (ROM). This tighness and lost ROM can create too much pull in on certain joints which can cause joint disorders. Knee problems can result from tight IT bands, which is a band of connective tissue that runs down the outside of the leg from the hip to the knee. Hamstring or low back disorders could result from tight hip flexors.

So what can we do to combat this buildup of scar tissue? Enter, Foam roller.




A foam roller in simple terms is a deep tissue massage. The technical term for it is myofascial release, which is the releases of these adhesions and break up of scar tissue. A foam roller is a large foam cylinder ranging from 1-3ft long. Virtually any superficial muscle can be "rolled" with a little imagination. Some areas of high tension are the upper, mid and low back, glutes, hamstrings, calves, hip flexors, IT band, quadriceps, and pectoral muscles. To affectively break up scar tissue muscles should be rolled slowly and with as much pressure as can be tolerated.



One more tip is that if you need more precise tissue release, any small sports ball can be used like a tennisball, lacrosseball, baseball or softball to target very tight areas.

For more information on foam roll techniques visit http://thenewfit.net/.

To buy a foam roller visit http://www.power-systems.com/ or http://www.performbetter.com/.

Until tomorrow

Steps to Reduce stress

There are many different stresses that one's body has to deal with on a daily basis. Some good some bad. Eustress (good stress) can be someone giving you a compliment, seeing someone you love or any type of excitment. Distress (bad stress) can be overload at work, bills piling up, or the speeding ticket you got on the way home from work. Now there is always going to be a little bit of both types in your life, it's impossible to completely eliminate either kind of stress, but you can significantly shift the scale to the side of eustress many different ways. Here are several successful and easy ways to deter stress in your life.

1) Find a hobby: Find something that occupies your time outside of any stressful environment. You see in the movies all the time husbands in the garage working on a project and the wife comes in and yells "HAVE YOU FIXED THE FRONT DOOR YET, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!!" Well that project is keeping him sain in a life of constant stress. Not to pick on the wives, they have their hobbies too. It could be a daily phone call with her best friend, or a childs weekly soccer game or dance reheasal, yoga, or reading a book. Bottom line find something that pleases you and relaxes your mind for an hour every day.

2) Eat healthy foods: Different kinds of foods are known to regulate hormones in different ways. Caffeine has a large affect on mood and stress levels. The stimulant raises blood pressure and heart rate considerably, which "revs" the body and mind up, often making it hard to concentrate and resulting in "the jitters." Too much alcohol is destructive to the body in many ways: it dehydrates the body, breakdown the cells of the liver, and the big one is that it supresses the immune system. Remember getting to college in your first year you were so excited to get there that you drank yourself stupid and came out on the flip side with a nasty hangover and a cold, now you know why.
Foods rich in antioxidants like: green tea, whole grains, and an assortment of fruits and vegetables can help get rid of free radicals that are destructive on the body. Healthy fats in fish and nuts help regulate sex hormes testosterone and estrogen. Your body is made up of about 50-60% water, SO DRINK LOTS OF IT!

3)Help people: Helping in general makes you feel good. Talking to friends or family and helping them with an issue bothering them can help some issues that are bothering you. Help someone understand something, help a child read a book, teach someone a new trick. Anything that you do to make someone happy, will make you happy, guarenteed.

4)Sleep: Sleep is your time for your body and mind to recover. Without it you will burn out. Everyone has different sleeping patterns and needs but it is recommended that 7-9 hours a day are devouted to sleep. Simply, if your groggy all day your sleep was not plentiful the night before and you either need more sleep, or something you did right before you went to bed was keeping you from getting enough rest

Evaluate these factors in your life an see if there are improvements to make that will alleviate some distress in your life.

Welcome to The New Fit Blog

Hi,
My name is John, I am the founder and Director of Fitness of The New Fit, a national personal training company that has just extended it's reach via virtual personal training. I invite you to visit our web page which will be adding new features daily as it's building process continues. Also if you live in the Richmond, VA area and would like professional personal training by experienced personal trainers and strength coaches at a fantastic price please feel free to email info@thenewfit.net to recieve an information packet.

For everyone that would just like some great research based exercise, training, nutrition, well-being, health and fitness information stay tuned for daily posts to this blog.