Fitness

July 26, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight, Workouts By Natasha Linton

Are You Getting the Fat Loss Results You Want from Weight Machines? Free Weights vs. Weight Machines

Since the 1970’s the Nautilus machines have been promising awesome results in little time and one body part at a time. And since the 1970’s gym members wanting fat loss results from performing a circuit workout on weight machines have yet to see real results. This is one reason avid gym goers still look the same as they did last year and not any more defined and not any smaller. Weight machines are attractive to gym members because they are easy to use and require little instruction. All you have to do is look at the picture on the machine...

July 24, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight By Vancouver Health Coach

Your Trainer Possibly Hates Working With You Because Of These Things

In my last post I gave 5 reasons why your current trainer might not be the one to help you achieve your health and fitness goals. This time I want to talk about why it might not actually be your trainer that’s the problem. It might actually be you! As a trainer I can tell you that over the years I’ve worked with a ton of amazing people. I’ve also worked with quite a few clients who I could barely stand to train. Below is a pretty common list of trainer pet peeves. Lets make sure you aren’t guilty of these...

July 20, 2014 In Fitness, News, Running, Spotlight By Vancouver Health Coach

Stretching Offers More than Flexibility

We have all heard that stretching is one of the essential components of fitness. But many of us continue to avoid the flexibility part of our workouts. Not only does stretching reduce risks of injury during physical activity, but it helps prevents post-exercise muscle soreness, otherwise known as DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness). A recent study done at Louisiana State University showed that stretching could possibly make people stronger as well as help to increase their endurance. Researchers believe that stretching works muscles in a method very similar to strength training, but on a very smaller level. It is also being suggested...

July 20, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight By Vancouver Health Coach

10 Reasons that Exercise is Not Just About Losing Weight

You can lose weight by eating healthy and watching your portion and calories but you can lose more weight faster and get fit by adding exercise to the picture. Let’s be realistic, exercising can be hard, it’s a matter of time or lack thereof. Between work, kids, making dinner and going to bed, when are you supposed to fit in that hour of exercise? The answer is, you’re just going to have to make it happen—no one else can do it for you, because exercise is not an option. If losing weight and looking good weren’t enough… Here are 10 reasons to...

July 13, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight, Workouts By Vancouver Health Coach

Gym Etiquette: Don’t Be That Guy in the Gym

It’s that time of the year again when the newbie’s hit the gym with the best of intentions. Unfortunately a lot of freshmen gym goers are not so well versed in some basic “rules” of the weight lifting area. You've definitely seen one, you may know one, or you may even be one. I'm talking about that annoying guy (or girl) in the gym who either doesn’t know what they are doing or just plain ignores some basic rules. This is my list of the top five weight training no-no's. 1. Don’t be that guy doing curls in the squat rack It's called the...

July 12, 2014 In Fitness, Food and Recipes, News, Spotlight By Vancouver Health Coach

Estimating Your Daily Caloric Needs

Calories; they are everywhere these days. We spend an awful lot of time and energy trying to count how many calories we consume per day, per meal, even per forkful. Yet many of us usually spend little if any time trying to figure out exactly how many calories we actually need, otherwise called our caloric needs. It's pretty easy to look up in any number of nutrition tables how many calories a certain food contains. It’s also pretty easy to add up all the calories you have eaten in a day to get your total daily caloric consumption. It's a little...

July 7, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight, Workouts By Vancouver Health Coach

6 Movements You Should Be able to Easily Do: Part 1

These are exercises that should be no problem at all if our body is functioning well. If you have difficulty with any one of them - you simply cannot do them or you have pain, there are body dysfunctions that should be addressed. Our bodies are meant to move, and when movement becomes a problem due to a lack of strength or flexibility, our lives can close down as we find ourselves no longer capable of doing the things we want. Stairs become a problem, getting in and out of cars or chairs difficult, or we have trouble carrying groceries home. Training...

July 5, 2014 In Editor's Picks: Must Haves for Staying Healthy, Fitness, News, Spotlight By Vancouver Health Coach

Heart Rate Monitors: Gadget or Fitness Tool?

You have seen athletes training for marathons, triathlons to the guy that has a garage full of every piece of fitness equipment ever sold on TV wearing heart rate monitors at one point or another.  But what exactly is their purpose?  How is it going to give me the body I want?  Should you include a heart rate monitor in your gym bag? No matter what your goals are, whether it is to lose weight, strengthen your heart, relieve stress, improve your health, or build muscle; wearing a heart rate monitor can help you achieve those goals by helping you find...

July 1, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight, Workouts By Vancouver Health Coach

Runner’s Knee: Beating the Injury

On Sunday, August 25 I went to Whistler, British Columbia to be a team Physiotherapist for a group of three athletes taking part in Ironman Canada. A 3.8KM swim, 180 KM bike, and 42KM run. The sheer determination and strength, both physical and mental, of the 2800 + contestants is absolutely amazing. Training and competing in such an intense race requires the proper “pre-hab” and re-hab. In the following weeks I will go through the 4 major injuries encountered by these athletes in the marathon portion of their race. Week 1: Runner’s Knee What is it? Runner’s Knee, clinically known as Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome...

June 10, 2014 In Fitness, News, Spotlight By Rich Ralph

Are You Wearing the Right Shoes for your Feet?

If your feet could talk, what do you think they would say to you? Would they be loud and angry at you all the time? Or maybe they would occasionally whisper a pleasant ‘Thank You’ in your ear? Although our feet can’t use words to communicate with us, they provide us with very real signals which they send to us via our bodies in hopes of letting us know what we’re doing right and wrong. I’ve always been a very athletic and fit person. But I have also always been very prone to ankle injuries. My soccer career was plagued by...