Category: Fitness

Travel and Exercise

Travel and ExerciseSummer is in full swing, and by now you’ve probably started wondering how to keep off the weight!  With summer time comes travel, vacation, eating out, and alot of inactivity thanks to the oppressive heat. All form a great combination for weight gain if you’re not mindful!

Travel and exercise can mix rather seamlessly though! If you’re traveling, set aside time to do something that raises your heart rate. Use your hotel’s fitness center if available, or choose to take the steps instead of an elevator. If on vacation, plan something activities that are fun in addition to why you’re going. For instance, go on an excursion that requires some hiking, or rent bicycles and ride them along the beach. When you eat out, keep it light, make healthy choices, and mind your alcohol intake.

Avoid Heat Illness: Stay Cool During Exercise

heat-illness-exercise-waterHere in Arizona it gets HOT; But, just because it gets dangerously hot, doesn’t mean people here lie inactive around the house during the summer months. In the midst of summer, it’s already 85F by 7AM, and by 10AM, temps are touching the 100s. To exercise in this 4 month oven, Arizonans make habit of a few simple, and easily adaptable practices. We can ALL learn something from how they deal with the heat.  Here are five tips for dealing with the heat, and avoiding heat illness regardless of where you live.

Kyphosis: Sit all Day, Hurt all Day

Avoid excessive kyphosis by properly setting up your workstation. NOT like this!Let’s face it, at one point or another, we’ve all had to sit for extended periods of time, looking at, or working on something in front of us. Whether it was in high school math class, Intro to Athletic Training in our undergraduate program, or our desk based career in the real world! Sitting for extended periods of time, with the focus in front can cause some changes to our musculoskeletal system, which if left unchecked, will wreak havoc throughout the kinetic chain. Kyphosis in relation to the spine describes a curve that is concave anteriorly and convex posteriorly. (1) Both the thoracic and sacrococcygeal regions display this curve, but it’s in the thoracic spine we commonly see problems arise.

Childhood Obesity: A Consequence of the Electronics Age?

Youth Gamers

The Electronics Age continues to usher in new improvements that supposedly improve our quality of living, but over the years, it may be causing a more long-term problem in the form of childhood and adult obesity. Video games now keep kids in the house to play with each other, virtually, online, rather than going outside to play and be active. Over the years, this has led to a decline in physical activity among adolescents, which in turn, has now set forth a full-blown obesity epidemic.

The American Council on Exercise

The American Council on ExerciseThe American Council on Exercise, or ACE, is a nonprofit organization committed to health and well-being. Over the past 25 years, ACE has become an established resource for both fitness professionals and consumers, providing free comprehensive, unbiased, scientific research impacting the fitness industry and validating itself as the country’s leading authority on fitness. Ace provides 4 different certifications: Personal Trainer, Group Fitness Instructor, Lifestyle & Weight Management Consultant, and Advanced Health & Fitness Specialist.

Certifications

ACE Certified Personal Trainer – Those that have completed this basic course will have demonstrated knowledge of risk factor screening, fitness assessment, nutrition, exercise science, exercise programming and progressions, lifestyle modification, and the professional scope of personal training.

Group Fitness Instructor – ACE is one of the only organizations I’ve found that offers certification for group exercise instruction. Those holding this credential are able to successfully develop and implement safe and effective group exercise programs.

Health Coach Certification – The American Council on Exercise’s Health Coach Certification is a re-skin, update, and replacement for the Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant Certification. This is an NCCA accredited course, and the only one of it’s kind. Because of this, this course serves as a benchmark, setting the standard for future health coaching courses by other organizations. Health Coaches use behavior modification to promote successful lifestyle changes in their clients. If you want to sit for this exam, you must be at least 18 years old, be CPR/AED certified, and hold either a current NCCA-accredited certification (such as ACE-CPT or NASM-CPT), an associate’s degree or higher, or comparable work experience in fitness, exercise science, nutrition, health care, wellness, human resources or a related field.

Advanced Health & Fitness Specialist – According to ACE, this is the only accredited fitness certification with extensive programming for the most common diseases and disorders seen on a regular basis by fitness professionals. To be eligible for this certification, applicants must have a related degree, prior certification, and at least 300 hours of work experience designing and implementing exercise programs for both healthy and at-risk individuals.