Just returned from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Summit in Las Vegas. Always enjoy sifting the take-away nuggets and industry trends. Here are a few gems:

1. There is a loss of fast twitch muscle fibers with aging resulting in less delayed muscle soreness (DOMS) often elicited by eccentric strength training in older adults.

2. The greatest excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) effect is derived from high intensity training (HIT) because cell restoration to pre-exercise homeostasis is an energy consuming process, which includes lactate removal, CRP replenishment and recovery of heart rate, temperature, ventilation and hormonal levels.

3. There are a many novel variations to eccentric training based on the three primary eccentric training methods: 1 up: 3-6 down, supra-maximal eccentric training and 2 up: 1 down.

4. To achieve adequate protein for optimal health and performance the caloric cost of plant-based protein is much higher than lean meat/poultry/fish based protein.
For example each of the following provide adequate daily protein:
7 TB peanut butter: 670 calories
3 ½ servings black beans: 374 calories
1 ½ cups raw tofu: 236 calories
3 oz lean beef: 180 calories

5. Protein requirements for optimal health and performance are different than protein requirements to prevent deficiencies, which are what RDA values, are based on.

6. If you are not taking in adequate daily protein catabolism is occurring, essentially abolishing muscle.

7. Sports nutrition and nutrition-related weight management topics are hot. Specifically the role of protein in weight management and fueling pre, during and post exercise.

8. Indoor cycling still packs them in!

9. Exercise is Medicine is picking up steam and creating a lot of interest, specifically in regards to designing and implementing programming, evidence-based programming, gaining physician referrals, and appropriately training qualified staff to work with older adults and individuals with disease-specific conditions.

10. High intensity training is all the rage – Crossfit, TRX, PX90, metabolic training, boot camps, Traboki and more. However, the current programming is only relevant, appealing and doable for about 20% of the population. Are we missing the mark and is this a nemesis for the fitness industry?

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• Depression by 30%
• And the number #1 treatment of fatigue

Well this intervention is no pill. It’s less expensive and much more fun!

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This is a must see lecture! Share this post with your colleagues, friends and family today!

This first of a kind study associating exercise to female orgasm and sexual pleasure adds another powerful motivator to get moving and to work those abs! Rumors about coregasm (the association of orgasm with core/abdominal exercises) have floated around gyms for years says researcher Debby Herbenick, researcher and co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in Indiana University’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Now there’s data to support and strengthen these claims. The most common exercises associated with exercise-induced orgasm (EIO) and exercise-induced sexual pleasure (EISP) cited in the study were abdominal exercises, climbing poles or ropes, biking/spinning and weight lifting. In open-ended responses from study participants, the “captain’s chair” exercise was particularly associated with EIO.

Additional key findings from the study include:

• 40 percent of women who had experienced EIO and EISP had done so on more than 10 occasions.

• Most of the women in the EIO group reported feeling some degree of self-consciousness when exercising in public places.

• 20 percent reported they could not control their experience.

• Most women reporting EIO said they were not fantasizing sexually or thinking about anyone they were attracted to during their experiences.

• 51.4 percent reported experiencing an orgasm in connection with abdominal exercises within the previous 90 days.

• Others reported experiencing orgasm in connection with weight lifting (26.5 percent), yoga (20 percent), bicycling (15.8), running (13.2 percent) and walking/hiking (9.6 percent).

Learn to love the Captain’s Chair exercise
The captain’s chair exercise is one of the best exercises for strengthening the abdominal muscles.

To correctly perform the exercise:
Grip handholds to stabilize the upper body
Press the back against the pad
Contract the abs to raise the legs and lift knees towards the chest
Avoid arching the back or swinging the legs up
Slowly lower the legs down
Repeat 12-16 reps, 1-3 sets

If you don’t have the Captain’s chair equipment an ordinary chair can be used perform the exercise.

Now get moving…and experience exercise-induced pleasure!

Participation in cycling and triathlon events is at an all-time high. The number of licensed competitive cyclists and USA Cycling sanctioned events has risen continuously for the past ten years. USA Triathlon membership has experienced unprecedented growth from 19,000 to over 135,000 in the past ten years. Many of these athletes are serious about improving their performance in their chosen events, while others are new to the respective sport. Both types of athletes can benefit immensely from personal coaching.

Take a look at this 68-year old athlete preparing for the state time trial event. Coach Tyrone Holmes gives you the tools, the plan and special considerations to take his performance to the next level. You can learn more in Coach Tyrone’s Developing Training Plans for Cyclists and Triathletes CE course.

Just a generation ago, devoted yogis had to travel to India or help organize the occasional visit of their master teacher. Today, yoga classes can be found virtually anywhere people can meet and throw down a mat: in yoga studios, health clubs, recreation centers, churches, schools, and parks.

One of yoga’s enduring strengths is its ability to repackage itself for the contemporary world. Although traditionalists may disagree, I think this is admirable – and also essential for its survival in an increasingly (like it or not) commercial world. Yoga’s stress-busting and anxiety-relieving properties have never been more needed then they are today.

While most of us are aware of the physical benefits of yoga postures and training, yoga entails much more. It is also about living in the moment as best you can. A yoga practice teaches many life lessons. Here are 10 from yoga expert and Executive Director for the Academy of Holistic Fitness Linda-Christy Weiler.

Life Lesson #1
Establish a solid foundation
The base of support in yoga postures refer to the body parts that are receiving your body’s weight and transferring this weight onto the earth to create a sound foundation.

Standing straddle forward fold pose (with rotation)

Life Lesson #2
Cultivate a support system
The backside of the body represents the realm of your psychological support system as well as your organic structural support system. “Awareness in the body’s back side feels like having eyes on the back of your head.”

Inclined plane pose

Life Lesson #3
Get your priorities right
Knowing what is most important in terms of placement in each pose will make the pose safer and more beneficial for the body.

Preparing proper leg placement for Warrior pose

Life Lesson #4
Be in the moment
Sensory awareness and mindfulness are vehicles that yoga postures use for transformation and healing. “As long as you are living life as an embodied human, the life of your body is your life.”

King Dancer pose

Life Lesson #5
Meet and greet every challenge
People give up too quickly. Learn to stick with something until the superficial issues drop away and the deeper issues surface. Only then can true problems be identified and essential issues resolved. “Get past the wildness of the mind and tap into the steady and calm nature of your spiritual self.”

Single leg seated straddle pose (with fold and rotation)

Life Lesson #6
Learn tolerance and acceptance
We learn to tolerate and accept poses we don’t like and that may cause discomfort, uncertainty or humility. We understand they have value. We learn to tolerate and accept what we cannot change and instead consider changing our perspective. “Initiate mental equanimity.”

Seated forward fold pose

Life Lesson #7
Restore calmness
There is nothing inherently wrong with humans experiencing a full range of (noncalm) emotions. Even emotions like anger when channeled in a constructive, nonhurtful way can be energizing and empowering. Return to a relaxed presence and release noncalm emotions by deeply inhaling and exhaling to create a sense of peaceful grounding and calm.

Seated Hero pose

Life Lesson #8
Experience and accept change as a constant
By passing through the cyclical stages of a yoga pose we learn to accept the inevitability of change. “Realize that endings lead to new beginnings.”

Seated Funnel pose

Life Lesson #9
Let go
When practicing a yoga pose, detachment enriches the experience. Detachment is a psychological construct that relates to releasing tension, not trying too hard and not being aggressive, impulsive or competitive. Detachment allows you to let the process unfold naturally and accept and approve of how the body performs today.

Tree pose with prayer hands

Life Lesson #10
Live your mission
Practicing yoga enhances your awareness and is a way to help you gain wisdom and appropriate decision making regarding your body, health, behaviors, relationships and your life’s mission. “Make every pose a good pose. Make every day a good day.”

Seated spinal twist

Learn more about how you can incorporate Life Lessons into your yoga class, plus many more new ideas for today’s yoga classes from Linda-Christy Weiler.

Everyone’s life involves peaks and valleys. What is good in life is as genuine and as significant as what is not good and therefore deserves equal attention when working with clients attempting to modify lifestyle behavior patterns.

The field of psychology has focused much of its efforts on human problems, pathology, and how to remedy the condition. Furthermore, psychology has evolved to embrace the disease model of human nature where people are seen as flawed and fragile, casualties of tough environments or bad genetics, and if not in denial, then in recovery.

Positive Psychology proposes to correct this imbalance and to challenge the pervasive assumptions of the disease model. In simple terms, positive psychology is the scientific study of what goes right in life. It calls for as much focus on strength as on weakness, as much interest on creating the best things in life as on repairing the worst, and as much attention to fulfilling and developing healthy lives as to healing the wounds of the distressed and diseased.

Is Positive Psychology Just Happiology?
When positive psychology is featured in the popular media it is often associated with the happiness movement and the study of happiness. Positive psychologists do study positive traits and dispositions – characteristics such as kindness, curiosity, and the ability to work on a team – as well as values, interests, talents, and abilities. They also study social institutions that can enable the good life: friendship, marriage, family, education, religion and so on. The notable strength of positive psychology is its continuity with the tried and true psychological research methods and the belief that these can be used to study what makes life most worth living.

The Three Pillars of Positive Psychology
The framework of positive psychology is based on three related topics:

1. Positive subjective experiences (happiness, pleasure, gratification, fulfillment)
2. Positive individual traits (strength of character, talents, interests, values)
3. Positive institutions (families, schools, businesses, communities, societies)

Connecting these three arenas positive institutions facilitate the development and display of positive traits, which in turn facilitate positive subjective experiences.

Want to learn more – check out this just released course Positive Psychology by one of the fore most experts and founders of the positive psychology movement Christopher Peterson, PhD and Kathleen Xydis. You will be introduced to strategies that help you connect with your clients, sustain motivation by creating positive flow and you will learn how to implement principles from the emerging field of positive psychology. The authors apply these principles to the wellness and fitness arena and provide insight into motivation, reinforcement and other factors that affect behavior change and support compliance with healthy lifestyle habits.

Also, don’t miss this fascinating TED Lecture by one of the founding fathers of the Positive Psychology movement, Martin Seligman.

Adapted from A Primer in Positive Psychology by Christopher Peterson, PhD

So much suffering and discontent is tied to hanging on to things. Nine times out of ten, if you are unhappy it’s because you are clinging onto to something, resisting, unable to break out of the box, shed the skin, release the bit from the mouth, take off the mask, cut the umbilical cord, turn the corner – whatever metaphor you chose – letting go, happiness and contentment are synonymous.

I’m letting go… as I roll into 2012?

Are you ready to let go ?

Thank you Gapingvoid for visually clarifying the intention!

While the US vegetarian/vegan population remains small, there is a significant rise in flexitarians, or those people that are consciously reducing their meat intake but still occasionally enjoy animal protein. The popularity of “Meatless Monday” developed in association with John Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health lends evidence to this growing trend towards occasional vegetarianism.

Flexitarians can be categorized into two groups, semi-vegetarians and meat reducers. Semi-vegetarians follow a vegetarian diet part of the time, but still eat some meat and dairy products. Meat reducers are not trying to follow a vegetarian diet, but are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat and incorporate a more plant-based diet primarily for health reasons.

There is little doubt of the health benefits of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. Diets rich in fruits and vegetables have been found to be protective against many cancers, reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis, help to control weight, and lower the risk for other diseases such as macular degeneration, cataracts, constipation, diverticular disease, gallstones and appendicitis.

So when you make your New Year resolutions for 2012, consider being more like a flexitarian. And check out this great cookbook, Greens Glorious Greens to introduce you to a dazzling array of fresh, crisp and nutritious leafy greens, how to buy them and how to cook them.

Wishing you all good health and happy cooking and eating in the new year!

Join Candice Brooks, BOSU Program Developer/Master Trainer and Sugar Bowl Academy Director of Athlete Training, as she shares with you three dynamic winter sports conditioning exercises using the BOSU.

The top five overall women rider’s in this year’s El Tour de Tucson 60-mile event was populated with ALL 50 plus women cyclists and one half of the top 15 women riders were over 50 years of age. 50-year old Amy Foley, from Scottsdale, AZ, lead the fast females with a time of 2:38:32 (averaging 22.7mph) only 2 minutes behind the 40-year old male and overall winner, Curtis Gunn. You go girl!

Another example of amazing women, peaking in their 50’s. Hey, 50 is the new 30!