Now that it is summer time, we really have to search hard for a good excuse to not be working out and eating right. This is the time of the lake front runners, the marathon madness, and an endless choice of summer sports. The idea is to just do something. I think one way to really get going is to set a goal. I really believe that over 50% of marathon runners are only running the marathon because they needed a goal in order to get in shape. If that works for them, then great! Setting a goal is a great way to give us something to work towards. This goal could be a race, a goal in the gym, or a weight loss goal. It doesn’t really matter, what matters most is that we stick to it and achieve it. When we stick to our goals and see success we learn to trust ourselves. We learn that we can achieve what we set out to do. This in turn gives us positive self image. And let’s face it, most of us are so hard on ourselves that we could use some good reinforcement. There are some important things to think about when setting goals. First, you need to make the goal achievable. So like losing 10 pounds is a better goal than 30 pounds. Although it may be true that you need to lose 30 pounds, its going to be tough to see fast enough results to stay motivated. Second, set yourself up for success and not failure. For instance, my clients always want to set a goal of working out every day. This is bound to create failure and disappointment leading to quitting. If they would instead set a goal of 4 days a week, this is more achievable. Then if you get in a few extra days, now you can celebrate a good week! Although in both instances you may have worked out the same amount of days, one way you feel like a failure and one way you feel like a success. Third, be ready to work hard. Goals shouldn’t have to be super easy to achieve. Be ready to be disciplined and have to sacrifice a little bit here and there. This is good for us! Fourth, have compassion for yourself. If you mess up forgive yourself and move on. Don’t yell at yourself and make yourself feel like a loser and decide it’s all crap anyway, and quit. Stand up brush yourself off and re-motivate. You can do it. You can achieve your goal. Move on and remember you’re human, and humans are never perfect. Keep going and tell yourself that even if it takes you 100 tries you will make it. If you don’t believe in yourself no one else will!

Now that its summer, we need to think about dropping our winter eating habits and embracing a summer philosophy. Summer eating should not be the same as winter eating. For one thing, the seasonal foods are way different. We need to be thinking about what’s in season now. The best way to know this is by shopping at farmer’s markets. I know it seems like more effort to go to a farmer’s market when your local grocery store is on the way home from work. Trust me, you’ll be so happy you made the effort! The produce is so fresh and smells like food should. You know it’s organic and it hasn’t been sprayed 20 times with waxes to make sure it didn’t rot by time it got here from some place far far away. Why in the world should we buy Mexican tomatoes when we can grow them locally? Read more »

A personal trainer friend and I got talking about getting results in the gym. We were talking about the difference of going through a motion and actually contracting your muscle through the motion. I know this may sound a little weird, of course I contract a muscle or how could I get the motion, right? Not necessarily. Let’s take bicep curls for example. It’s a very different experience to lift the dumbbells 20 times or to actively contract the bicep muscle very hard, hard enough to raise the weight towards your shoulder. Probably the most ignored in this department is the abs. I see people doing 30, 40, 50 sit ups with no problem. Um, problem. I doubt that they were even contracting their ab muscles. Try this. Lay down on your back with your knees bent. Hands behind your head, elbows back even with your ears, eyes on the ceiling. Now, contract your abs muscles really hard, now keep contracting them harder until you can use them to raise your shoulder off the floor. Keep your elbows back and your eyes on the ceiling, a space between your chin and your chest. Is it hard? It should be! Try 20 of those and let me know if you feel it. You should! Or are you unable to even find how to do it? It’s not easy to purposefully contract a muscle if you’ve never done it. The difference between a good work out and a great workout is muscle contraction. The difference between some results and great results is in the muscle contraction. Next time in the gym try this with every exercise. Every exercise! See how different you feel at the end of your workout. Note, you may have to drop the weight in order to do it.

Today I’m going to talk about a really amazing therapy that I do called Muscle Activation Therapy (MAT). MAT is a great tool for anyone that has joint pain or instability. That has back pain, foot pain, or neck pain. MAT is great for anybody that works out or is an athlete that feels like they are just a little unstable and should be performing better than they are. So pretty much, MAT is great for anyone. So what is MAT? It is a system of checking the range of motion of joints and bringing stability to where it is lacking. For example, when someone lifts their arm and their shoulder hurts, this is due to instability somewhere within the body. When muscles that should move a bone through a range of motion can’t, then other muscles must take their place to do this. This is called compensation. Compensation is the way in which the body keeps moving even when something is wrong. We know that whenever there is a lack in range of motion, there will always be compensation. So if your right arm can rise higher than your left arm, there is compensation someplace. If you look down at your feet and one turns out more than the other, there is compensation. If you find you can rotate to the left further than the right, you got it, compensation. Not all compensation will lead to pain, but all pain is due to compensation. With MAT, we check the range of motion to find where the compensation is. We then go through a series of muscle testing to find what muscles are having problems. Then we try to restore the range of motion of the join by activating the muscles that are inhibited. All of this is done on a massage table using our fingers. The session usually takes about an hour to an hour and a half. You may ask, how does this work? This is a type of neuromuscular therapy. This means that the nervous system and the muscle system have lost communication in some way. The nervous system gets information from the outside world. It then communicates with the brain that it needs some response by the body. The brain then signals the muscles to move the bones to respond to the stimuli. Sometimes the signal-brain-muscle system gets interrupted. What the MAT therapist is doing is restoring this system. The result is an instant response and immediately stronger muscles. Not because the muscle was weak, but because now the brain can signal the muscle to work all the way. This leads to joint stability, quicker movement times, and often a decrease in pain. It’s one of the most amazing therapies I’ve ever come across. One session can blow your mind. Read more about it at www.muscleactivation.com.

Summer is almost here! But the time to get prepared is right now. One thing to consider to jump start your summer goals is a detox. One particular one that I know most people will think is maybe a little more extreme than they are ready for, is Karyn’s Raw Food Detox. I don’t know if you’ve been to Karyn’s Raw on Halstead just north of North Ave, but it’s a marvelous, albeit crazy little place. I did my first raw food detox last May and haven’t looked back. Raw food is an idea that food carries enzymes and nutrients, and that when you cook food it kills them so that the body can’t use them anymore. Raw food Vegans don’t eat meat or dairy, and cook things only to 115 degrees. They also sprout all of their seeds and beans in order to bring out the nutrients in them. Sprouting can increase the nutrients of a seed up to 300 times! Karyn’s detox has you go either vegetarian, vegan, or if you can handle it raw. Its four weeks, and includes fun things such as colonics, wheatgrass, and a 7 day juice fast where you eat nothing but fresh juice for a week. I know it sounds daunting, but when I say you won’t believe your eyes I mean it. Besides having amazing energy, and more than likely any illness that’s bothering you just disappearing, your body will look like you never imagined it could. I don’t lie. Your body will look amazing. I lost 10 pounds during my detox last year. If you have the courage and determination, it will be a really tough 4 weeks, but you will get results that you could never dream of.

I find that too often people do not and often refuse to work out their legs at the gym. I don’t really understand this to tell you the truth. I don’t understand a compartmental way of looking at the body. I know that legs are tough, tiring, and often painful to work out. This doesn’t mean you can just skip them. One thing I usually hear is “but I run, that’s working out my legs.” Um, no it isn’t. Our legs are so important to keep strong and work out. Our legs carry the entire weight of our body. When we run or jog the forces on our legs are up to 4 times our body weight. The pelvis and spine are moved and stabilized by our legs. When our legs have dysfunction and weakness, this opens the door to compensation and injury. The legs are responsible for holding most of the muscle on the body. This means that our metabolism is very connected to them. Anybody that is trying to lose weight and considering not working the legs is missing an important component. Also, working the legs is key to getting the core and abs strong. The psoas muscle is an important spine stabilizing core muscle that attaches to the spine and the leg. It’s the only muscle to do so. The psoas is a spine stabilizer, but when there is dysfunction the psoas then becomes a mover of the legs. This is not good. It’s a compensation pattern that eventually leads to all kind of problems. Women often think their legs will get big if they train them, not true. Men often believe that since the invention of board shorts, you can’t see their legs so they don’t matter. Good job men, that’s a fresh one. And yes, I have heard that from clients of mine. I feel the legs are one of the most important components of working out that is often missed. So please, start adding these in. It’ll change everything for you.

We probably don’t treat ourselves to the pleasures of body work enough, n\but the next time you decide to splurge give Thai massage a try. My first experience with Thai massage was from Paul Fowler, one of the owners of The Chicago School of Thai Massage. Let me tell you, it blew my mind. Now there’s a lot of misunderstandings and often times no understanding about what Thai massage really is. Thai massage is a combination of gentle stretching and compression work. It work the pressure points in your feet, hands, and face. They will run the energy lines up and down your body, moving stuck energy. It’s done fully clothed and lying on a mat on the floor. The masseur uses their entire body including feet and knees. It is often called ‘lazy mans yoga’ since they often have you in yoga positions, although you get to just relax the whole time. It is a wonderful type of massage. I don’t know any other time that I feel so peaceful and good, except after a hard yoga class. I liked it so much I decided to do the Chicago School of Thai Massage’s 6 month intership to learn more about it and how to give it to others. Believe it or not, its just as fun to give one as to receive! I had one done when I was having a lot of problems with my hip and knee during running. After my first massage I ran pain free and continued that way. Thai massage has therapeutic benefits beyond just feeling good. So give it a go next time your feeling tired and run down or tight and stiff. It’s a real treat.

I just finished my second silent meditation retreat and thought what else could I blog about. The type of meditation is called Vipassana Mediation. Vipassana means to see things as they really are. Here is a quote from them about what the purpose of this method is is. “This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose. Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body. ” In a ten day retreat there’s some things that make it pretty tough. Read more »

The glycemic index (GI) is an important word to understand, especially when it comes to weight loss. The glycemic index measures how fast a food is likely to raise your blood sugar. Another word that is important is glycemic load (GL). This takes the GI and factors in the serving of carbohydrates in the food. For example, the GI of watermelon is pretty high, but since there’s not a lot of actual carbohydrates in the watermelon, the actual GL of watermelon on the blood sugar is fairly low. It is believed that wide fluctuations in blood sugar levels promote over-eating, mood changes, increased LDL cholesterol, decreased HDL, hypertension, and obesity. Generally when choosing foods with a low GI, they will be higher in fiber (and nutrients) and will be absorbed more slowly. This provides a better sense of fullness and an even level of energy, without widely fluctuating insulin levels. There are many places on the internet to find the glycemic levels of food. If you are looking to change the shape of your body through dieting and exercise you must become familiar with these foods. Read more »

Today I had a client that went into muscle spasms after doing a few sets of lat pull downs. He mentioned later that the day before he had sat at a swim meet for almost 10 hours on very uncomfortable bleachers. This brings up a really good point that I’d like to talk about. This client sits at a desk and computer many hours a day. He tends towards a hunched back and forward shoulders posture. So we do a lot of work opening up his chest and getting him stretched out and warmed up. Today we didn’t do that as much. We went into the workout pretty quick. This injury probably could have been avoided with a better warm up. Read more »