There are a lot of great options for people who want to build their fitness.  Unfortunately, there are also a lot of products offered for sale that are basically useless.  This article is a quick primer on how to identify “junk” fitness products.

First of all, a product that promises “great results in only five minutes three times a week” should be looked at with great skepticism.  There are some five minute training drills that only a handful of supremely conditioned athletes can do.  For example, the the RKC kettlebell test involves snatching a 53 pound kettlebell overhead 100 times in five minutes.  Vanishingly few people have the strength and endurance to do this.  For the vast majority of people just starting training, you will get little value from “five minute” training.   Beginners simply do not have the physical capacity to do the high intensity workouts that will tax even the best conditioned athletes. 

On the flip side of this point, five minutes of training is better than nothing…..but not a lot.  You should expect to spend 30 minutes (minimum) and 60 minutes (maximum) in a training session that will produce strength development and improved cardiovascular capacity. 

A second indicator of a “junk” product is that it can only be used for one exercise.  Most of us have seen “infomercials” for abdominal machines that put you through the same movement with different degrees of difficulty.  The main problem with these devices is that most people quickly outgrow them.  When this happens, the “one trick” device winds up in the garage, or at a yard sale. 

In direct contrast to the “one trick” devices are things like kettlebells or dumbbells that can be used in an almost infinite variety of movements.  Even light weights can be used in a wide variety of training that will continue to give the user a challenge for many years.  Free weights are the polar opposite of “one trick” devices.  There are a vast number of ways you can use them for many years….and they are simple and don’t suffer mechanical failures.

A third way to evaluate a potential purchase is whether the device will actually do what you need done.  If you are beginning a fitness program, you need something that will give your entire body a good training session.  As noted, many of the devices offered for sale will work one part of your body, and leave the other parts untested.  This can actually be a problem in that you will develop muscle imbalances, and the pains that go with them. 

There are very few machines on the market that will give you a good all around training session.  The ones that can do this are extremely expensive.  Free weights (barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells) are clearly superior to almost any machine in terms of versatility and giving good value for the dollar.  Another option that is growing in popularity are exercise sandbags.  Like free weights, sandbags allow you to do a huge variety of movements and train the entire body. 

Finally, you have to evaluate what benefit you will get from the fitness “gadget” as opposed to the value of paying a monthly membership at a gym.  The gym will give you a huge range of equipment and other training options.  For example, if you have to pay $100 for a product, you should consider what you would get if you spent the same $100 on a gym membership.  You might get up to three months of access to lots of different equipment in the gym.  You might even find that the product you considered buying was available at the gym for you to try out.  

Lastly, you might be initially attracted to a piece of equipment because it promised some type of result you wanted.  If you take the time to think how best to accomplish your goals, you may decide that a totally different strategy is better suited to accomplish the goals you want to attain.  In the end, you may decide to buy something totally different. 

I hope this helps you make good choices when considering how to invest your time and money in fitness equipment.  Here’s hoping that you are able to get great value for your money.   

Richard

People are often confused about what they need to do to be “healthy”.  A lot of people have no clear idea about just what steps they need to take to “be healthy”.  This short article is intended to help you understand what your health care professional can do for you, and what they really can not do for you if you want to be “healthy”.

First of all, it helps if we have a definition of what it means to be “healthy”.  For most people it simply means to be “not sick”.  That is, they can carry out every day life without any significant restriction because of their physical health.  If they have some chronic problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or some other condition that can be managed with drugs, they still feel they are “healthy” if their condition does not become critical.

The problem with this definition is that it does not take into account the posibilities of having “exceptional health”.  This is the type of health where you are able to do exceptionally challenging physical tasks and find that they are both fun and rewarding.  Rather than being managed in a state just above physical calamity, you are in a physical state where you literally have few limits on what you can do.  The idea of not being able to do almost any physical activity you want is far from your mind.

What should be of interest to those of us past 50 is that it is possible to achieve ”exceptional health”.  But how one gets this is very different than achieving the condition called “not sick”.   The big difference is that to deal with disease and serious physical damage, you need to have a good medical professional.  Their job is to deal with things like cancer, serious illness and broken bones.  Their job is to use all their skill and available technology to get you to the situation where you are “not sick”.

If you want “exceptional health” that is going to require a whole different approach, and the key person in achieving this outcome is not your doctor…it is YOU.  Your doctor is great for dealing with all kinds of dread conditions, but if you want to achieve exceptional health it means you will have to get yourself in good physical condition, get your weight where it should be, and keep yourself in great shape.  There is no treatment the doctor can provide that will do this for you.

When you are seeking exceptional health, your doctor can give you advice, but the way you are going to get in good conditon is by training diligently, eating properly and learning everything you can about how to care for yourself.  This is not a ”visit the doctor and get a prescription” type activity.  You are the one who has to train, manage what you eat, and keep your mental focus.

Unfortunately, too many people believe (or hope) that they can get outstanding health by simply taking a pill or working out occasionally.   Reality is that you have to have a healthy life style if you are going to have exceptional health.

The good news is that almost anyone can achieve a very dramatic improvement in their physical fitness, and have “exceptional” health.  Recent studies reported by the Harvard University Health Letter indicate that it does not matter what age you are when you begin training and eating properly.  People well into their 70’s can transform their health and fitness if they adopt a healthy life style and train consistently.  The key is to get started now!!!!!

You can make a huge and dramatic improvement in your physical fitness at any age.  You can check out the free quick start course offered on this site.  You can also dig much deeper and see whats involved in transforming your life for the better by purchasing my six month transformation course called A Guide to Getting Younger After 60:  How to take Ten Years off Your Body. Click on the tab above to get your copy.

In reality, the choice is yours whether you want to have exceptional health, or simply be “not sick”.  That is the good news.  It is up to you….not your doctor.

Richard

When people begin a diet or a training program, they often never think about how fit they need to be when they start.  In other words, they have no clear idea of the real objective of their own training program.  This is equivalent to starting on a car trip with no idea of the destination.  Yet, most people seem to begin their programs with no clear idea of where they want to go. 

If you don’t have an idea of where you want to go, how will you know if you are even going in the right direction?

If you don’t have some initial idea of what you want to accomplish, you will have no idea if your work is helping you get where you want to go.  It will be easy to quit doing your training because you have no way to determine whether you are failing or succeeding.   

Here are some basic ideas that should help you decide what you want to do, and how effective your training program may be.

People often begin training with the idea that they want to be “healthy”. This is really a pretty vague idea, and it makes it really hard to decide what you should be doing, what you should buy, how you should eat, and what makes any sense for you.

Let me offer some ideas that should help you sort out your own objectives. 

People do physical training for two basic reasons:  1) Enhance their physical capacity to do a variety of physical activities; and 2) to look good.  If you work on building your physical capacity, you will often look better as well.  

Enhancing physical capacity basically means building muscular strength, endurance and capability to do a variety of tasks ranging from very simple things like daily activities to far more demanding things like running marathons.   Being “in shape” is always relative to what you are trying to accomplish.  

Many older people find that they don’t have the physical capacity to do simple daily tasks like walking any distance, lifting light objects, getting in an out of chairs, or climbing stairs.  People who have such a limited physical capacity generally have the goal of regaining basic functionality.  On the other hand, there are many people in their 60’s and 70’s who are involved in competitive sports who are working at trying to improve their times in the marathon or consistently shoot par on the golf course.  They are trying to enhance their physical capacity to perform extremely difficult and demanding activities. 

To help you understand where you may be in terms of your own fitness, and where you want to go, I developed a twenty point scale that dipicts the various levels of physical capacity a person can achieve.  The list includes ten levels of negative conditioning to ten levels of positive conditions.  The levels of conditioning are rank ordered from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most extreme level in each case.  Let me begin by showing the negative scale for fitness.  The conditions I include are intended to be illustrative:

Negative Fitness Scale

1. Overweight by 5-10%
2. Some physical limitations -
3. High blood pressure – overweight 10-15%
4. Significant overweight  – hypertension – pre-diabetic
5. Chronic high risk for heart attack and stroke
6. Diabetic (type 2) – unable to do regular recreation –
7. Morbid obesity – unable to do routine physical tasks
8. Have suffered stroke or heart attack
9. Major loss of function
10. Incapacitated – terminal illness

This is a pretty grim list.  Your goal is to be on the positive side of the scale.  Here is the positive list.  Remember, the conditions are illustrative.

 Positive Fitness Scale

1.  NOT SICK
2. No physical limitation on every day activities
3. Bodyweight within 5% of target – normal blood pressure
4. Able to do mild recreational activities –  weight on standard
5. Able to do relatively demanding recreational activities
6. Can pass multiple strength and cardio fitness tests
7. Can participate in multiple non-competitive sports
8. No limitation on recreational activities
9. Able to participate in some competitive sports
10. Routine participation in high intensity competitive sports
11. Performs as an elite athlete in competitive sports

You will note that I stuck in an “11″ category for elite athletes.  This is because there are so few people who actually perform at this level, and they are literally “off the chart”.

You can use this scale in a couple different ways.  The first is to establish where you are when you start, and where you want to go.  This is important because it gives you a sense direction for your training, and an idea of how you are progressing. 

The second way you can use this scale is to evaluate different options for training or nutrition products.  For example, if a product promises to convert you from a -8 to a +9, you really need to be skeptical.  Pills and supplements alone cannot take you from a -5 to anything above a +1 (not sick).   In short, you can look at a product and assess how much difference it may actually make in your overall fitness.

The vast majority of people probably begin training at somewhere between the low to mid minus numbers, and the low positive numbers, such as “not sick”.  Their goals when they begin should be to move up the scale to a point where their physical capacity allows them to do whatever they may want to do with no real limitation.

it really does not make a large difference where you begin, because often those who are at the lower rankings when they start use this as a motivation to move to much higher rankings.  Literally, you are the one who determines where you want to go.  If you start at minus 4, you may want to go to a plus 5 on the scale.  Simply being “not sick” may seem like a big goal when you start.  As you progress up the scale, your goals may change.  This is just fine.  Where you want to go is up to you. 

Have a great day,

Richard

Many of you started diet and exercise programs as part of your “new years resolutions”.  When you started in January, you had a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about what you were going to accomplish.  However, as the weeks passed, it became apparent that staying with the program for an extended period was going to be difficult.  Many people who started the same time as you have already abandoned their programs, and reverted to their old ways….and it is only the first of February.

The short video below gives you some tips on how you can keep your commitment and get the results you want.  Check it out.

Have a great day,

Richard