April 2016

NEED A NECK MASSAGE???

You do your best to get results from your workouts… you eat well, you train hard and yet you still feel like you’re falling short of hitting your peak.

Low energy, grogginess, shortage of breath and neck and back pain are just some of the problems you may be suffering from. But why? How does a perfectly healthy, athletic individual who eats well and trains hard STILL suffer?

It affects nearly everyone, no matter what your age or level of fitness. It’s a problem that originates in just one area of your body but affects your overall health, including your mental as well as your physical state.

It’s forward head posture… also known as text neck.

Your neck is designed to remain vertical, supporting the weight of your skull in a perfect line from the top of your head straight down through your body to your feet.

When you look at yourself in the mirror from the side, your ear, your shoulder and your hips should all be in a straight line down to the floor. If it is unaligned and your ear is in front of your shoulders, it’s a sure sign of forward head posture.

You see, the average head weighs 10-12lbs. When your head sits perfectly upon your neck and shoulders, the body naturally adapts to holding this weight.

But if your head is constantly pulled forward, the weight of your head pulls on your neck and puts pressure on your spine.

When your head is pulled forward the additional pressure on your neck, shoulders and back rises dramatically causing serious tissue damage. In fact, every inch your head is thrust forward from its natural position adds another 10 lbs of stress on the neck, shoulders, back and spine.

forward-head-posture2

It’s why you may have developed that ugly ‘hump’ below your neck; to combat the stress of holding your head up, the body’s reaction has been to build-up bone and fat tissue to compensate and protect the spine at the C7 vertebrae.
Forward head posture doesn’t just leave you looking awkward… No matter how hard you train or how well you eat, unless you start fixing your head posture right now, it may not be possible to reverse the damage already done.

It is possible to fix your forward head posture using some really simple movements that instantly improve your posture and increase your strength and energy.

Not only does Forward Head Posture give your back that ugly hunch and crouched-over look… it also causes much deeper, serious problems including:
-Constant fatigue and lack of energy
-Pain in your neck, shoulders or upper, lower and middle back
-Permanent damage to your joints, muscles, ligaments, blood vessels & nerves
-Headaches and migraines
-Poor sleep or insomnia
-Arthritis
-Impaired athletic performance
-Loss of height by 2 inches
-Looking 10 lbs fatter than you actually are
-Affects your hormonal health
-Noisy mouth breathing, snoring & sleep apnea
-Early degeneration of your spine
-Pinched and trapped nerves
-Decreased range of motion
-Lack of confidence
-Blood Flow to the Brain
-Asthma
-Decreased lung capacity by up to 30%
-Harmful affects to vision and hearing
-Jaw pain and sinus issues
-Dizziness, vertigo and balance issues
Burdens your digestive system

You just can’t correct the damage that has already been done with static stretching alone.
It’s not about the stretches and movements; it’s about the ORDER of the movements!!!. There needs to be a combination of corrective exercise and other techniques to open up and release the neck while activating other muscles so you can return to a balanced state with proper movement in the neck.

We are here to help,,, take the time to book your fitness evaluation at OVOX and start implementing the specific exercises and techniques that can make a difference to your health and well-being and protect yourself against long-term damage to your spine.

Weight Training > Cardio for Fat loss

So first this guy is telling me to eat fat to lose fat. Fine. He proved it. Now he’s telling me that weight training is more effective than cardiovascular training for fat loss? He’ll prove it again. Yes, it is indeed true that this is the case (in most instances) and I will indeed prove it again. So within that unnecessary attempt to sound clever with shifting and inconsistent verb tenses, I make a bold claim that definitely counters most of our population’s intuition in regards to weight training and cardio and each of their respective functions. The notion that cardiorespiratory training is more effective for fat loss is simply that; a notion, and not a fact. My speculations as to why this notion exists is based on the following two perceptions:

  • The perception that energy expenditure and oxygen intake is greater with cardiorespiratory training than weight training.
    1. It may seem like energy expenditure is greater when doing cardio than weight training; after all, isn’t that college girl drenched in sweat (natty ice from the night before) killing herself on the elliptical as skinny as a Victoria secret model? She is NOT sweating that much on the weight room floor that’s for sure.
    2. We seem to need more oxygen while hitting the stair-master; that must mean I am burning more calories and thus more fat, right? (wrong)
  • Our perception of athletes, their training styles, and the correlation we make to their body composition.
    1. Marathon runners, soccer players, and cyclists are lean as string beans and boy do they run a lot.
    2. Football players especially linemen, and baseball players hit the weights hard and they are not exactly all that close to having washboard abs.

Let me start with this before diving into all my scientific mumbo-jumbo. Everyone is impacted by a countless number of different factors; our body composition and its ability to perform is no different. Thus, we must not fall victim to correlation and causation. Instead of making the assumption that our college girl in her pink Nike’s going absolutely haywire on the elliptical is efficiently burning fat by doing cardio just because she is skinny, we must recognize that she is impacted by MANY different factors. Perhaps she was a soccer player growing up and metabolically has been conditioned to utilize nutrients more effectively than you were. Maybe she just experienced a traumatic event that has made it difficult for her to eat. She may be genetically blessed. What applies to her may not apply to you, and what applies to you may not apply to that guy at work giving you advice who is an exercise science professional because he finished a 12-week bodybuilding.com workout plan. What about the offensive lineman who is pushing 330? Did you ever look at the 1,000 carbohydrates he ate daily? Did you get a chance to see a picture of his dad or mom and know his genetics?

So what’s the best thing to do then to figure out what is best for me? Use science. Let’s start then with this scientific fact: The majority of calories you burn in a day are not through activity, but instead through your resting metabolic rate, (RMR). So you may be confused. Do I really mean to tell you that the majority of calories that I burn are while I’m NOT active? YES, this has been proven over and over again in studies and what has also been proven is that there is a direct positive correlation between lean body mass and your RMR. Weight training is getting you that lean body mass increase, not cardio. The paradigm to create in your mind based on this is that the fat-loss benefits of cardiorespiratory training are acute, while the fat-loss benefits of weight-training are around the clock! You hit the treadmill for 25 minutes, you get 25 minutes of benefit. That’s not the case with weight training.  Your body is expending energy and burning calories when it is attempting to repair your muscles after that killer bench day. Processes like protein synthesis (which is an example of one of many) are going on for hours (36 – 48 to be exact), to help repair your muscles after an intense weight training session and during this time you are burning far more calories than when you are in the gym!

So you may be thinking now that all that cardio that you do is pointless. Not true. I am absolutely not saying not to hit the stair-master. If you want to go to that spin class, go. Prepare for that 5k in a few months; I would never advise you not to. In fact, I am not even saying that these things would not help you burn fat because they will; just understand that their benefits when related to fat loss are simply acute. Cardiorespiratory training, especially distance running is proven to be the most beneficial type of fitness for cognitive functioning and enhancement. All forms of cardio are beneficial for your heart health, and will increase your capacity to take in oxygen. DO YOUR CARDIO.  In a perfect world a program would consist of a balance between resistance training and cardio-respiratory training. However, what you should take away from this is that if your goals are to burn fat and you had to choose between the stair-master and the squat rack, take the latter. Weight training is simply more efficient for fat-loss. Science says so.

 

How Fitness Saved my Life

How Fitness Saved my Life

What does fitness mean to you?  When have you looked at fitness as more than just a way to look aesthetically pleasing?  Why do people have such a hard time committing to an action plan when it comes to a fitness transformation?  All of these questions seem to always be on the forefront of my mind when I meet a new client for the first time.  After all, being a personal trainer is not really about changing someone physically (even though that is one of the outcomes), it’s about helping them reflect on their ideologies and perhaps show them that like all life battles, we must begin with our mind before we change our body.  

Sometimes our fitness journey begins because we need to see a change in the mirror.  Maybe it is because we need something to distract our minds from the everyday struggles of reality, or perhaps the most important of all, we use it as a form of therapy.  Whatever the case may be, we all have to agree that it takes effort, time, and dedication to see a change. 

For me fitness became my savior when I left teaching back in June of 2014.  Almost 10 years of my life were spent in a classroom.  For the majority of that time I absolutely loved it.  My students (many of whom I run into today and still hug with open arms) were the reason I went to work.  The classroom environment always excited me and being around young energetic minds kept me young as well.  Unfortunately after years of service I began to feel an emptiness in my soul.  The politics and nepotism in our public school system became too discouraging to me, and I decided to try another course of action.  I decided to take my money out of the pension system (which inadvertently stripped me of my years of service), as well as my 401K, and took a risk on myself and went out into the world as a fitness entrepreneur.

For two years I spent my time training for the hit TV show American Ninja Warrior, and put food on the table by being an independent personal trainer.  At night during my free time I worked on my business plan for a ninja gym I wanted to open in the Monmouth County area.  Even with all the distractions going on, I began to feel lost and without a real cause.

For those of you who have had to go through a period of time without employment, you may be very familiar with the feeling of being lost.  The professions we pursue should be the reason why we better ourselves day in and day out.  Teaching was my livelihood and once I walked away from it, I felt empty.  I didn’t want to go back to teaching, and I didn’t want to go into a profession I didn’t love.  I was restless at home, and I needed something to distract me from the mental stress I was placing on myself day in and day out.  This restlessness led to training, and the training was based around the competition.  I would train Monday through Sunday, sometimes twice or three times a day for two years.  When I wasn’t running, I was rock climbing, or kayaking, or practicing martial arts or gymnastics, or lifting, or stretching.  I busied myself day in and day out to train for a competition that I had no guarantee competing in.  

The workouts were grueling, but they distracted me from my thoughts.  My thoughts of feeling inept, useless, and incomplete would lay at the wayside when I focused in on my workouts.  The workouts gave me a reason for waking up in the morning.  The workouts kept me in shape and prevented me from sitting on the couch and feeling sorry for myself.  The workouts were the one thing that I had to rely on.  My wife and kids were obviously a cornerstone as well, but sometimes the presence of other people is not enough to battle the inner demons we feel.  As time passed, even my wife began to wonder where I was going with this crazy journey, and to be honest, at the time, I had no idea.  The gym was my only solace, a safe haven where I could escape and leave my worries behind. 

As time passed I became stronger, faster, leaner, and more agile.  I became obsessed with ninja culture and being functionally fit.  I wanted a shot on the TV show so bad that it was all I thought about.  Unfortunately I was never given the opportunity to compete, but I still submit my video every year and hope to get a chance eventually. I realize now that the competition wasn’t the most important goal.  The competition was a beacon of light that kept me sane in a world of tumultuous feelings.  

So after two years of soul searching, luck would intervene on my fitness journey and bring me to OVOX.  When I met Stu Rosenstein for our first interview, I wasn’t nervous at all.  I had nothing to lose and saw this as an informal meeting that could potentially lead to some personal training.  In my mind I was already on a path, and nothing was going to get in my way.  I expressed from day one my value and understanding of my own self worth, and because of this my feelings were understood and finally recognized.  What started as an informal meeting became something so much larger.  Once I saw the vision from the owners of OVOX, I knew that I would be a powerful force within the company.  I still believe to this day, that if I didn’t have those two years to lose myself, I would have never truly realized who I was and what I was meant to do.  

The energy I exuded on the day of the interview came from the years of strenuous torture I put myself through, both physically and mentally.  The struggles I overcame during this period of my life, made me realize that I have everything to offer, and nothing to lose.  The false security of a regular paycheck left me stagnant, and it wasn’t until the universe intervened that I realized, I needed to let go of my fears, in order to evolve and become a better person.   

What I plan on bringing to this gym is the same thing I bring to my own workouts.  I want every member to walk out of our doors feeling ten times better than the way they felt coming in.  The gym is a home for those who seek change, a place of solitude where your frustrations and feelings can be released through physical challenges. I am here to make sure my clients learn that the fitness journey they are going on is not just about a physical transformation.  It is about the reevaluation of the self juxtaposed the society we live in.

We can never truly be happy with the way we look if our goal is to look like someone else. Remember that your personal growth should never be compared to someone else’s.  To achieve your fitness goals you must let go of the vision inside your mind, and focus on the reality that is in front of you.  If you are short, working out will not make you tall, and if you are tall, working out will not making you short.  Remember that your genetics and basic body composition is infinitesimally different then every other person on earth.  Because of this fact alone, you should never gauge your growth against another individual.  Focus only on your own personal successes and let those moments be the purpose you push yourself further.

When I come into the gym, I smile every time I walk in because I know that my workout is going to soothe my busy mind. The sooner you learn fitness is therapy, the better your workouts become.  Don’t come into the gym because you have to look good for the summer, come into the gym so you feel amazing for a lifetime.  Don’t come into the gym for the sake of coming, come to the gym for the sake of your well being.  Don’t come to the gym to please other people, come to the gym to please yourself.  Take pride in your fitness journey and remember that the most challenging part of the workout is showing up.

Sincerely,

Jonny Tsunami

“Ride the Wave”