All posts by Mike Shannon

It’s here – whether you’re ready or not. Just look at the seasonal shelves in your favorite store. Retailers like to call it ‘holiday season’ but let’s be more accurate.

Weight Gain season begins now and runs straight through New Year’s.

The next two months will bring ample opportunity for you to expand your waistline. Of course the choice is yours.

Why discuss it now and not mid-way through December? Because now is your opportunity to plan for the weeks ahead. Once the craziness begins, you’ll be too busy to put a plan into action.

So let’s take this moment of clarity, this calm before the storm, to outline a two-part plan that will save your waist from unwanted holiday inches.

Part One: Your Exercise Plan.

Exercise is the first thing people cut when they get busy, and the holiday season is notorious for empty gyms. This year do something different-obligate yourself to exercise. Promising to yourself won’t do it, you need to promise to others so that you won’t drop the ball.
• Schedule your workouts in advance – This is the perfect solution for consistent, challenging and effective workouts. I’ll give you the attention and assistance that you need to power through the holidays in better shape than ever – talk about motivating!
• Join a class – You won’t be as effective exercising on your own during the busy holiday season, so join a class for accountability – there are 2 HIIT and 3 bootcamp classes every week, and plenty of spinning opportunities with Chandra. Find something challenging that gets your heart rate elevated and uses strength training.
• Get a serious exercise buddy – Some friends can be an awesome help, while others end up pulling you down. When looking for an exercise buddy consider the following questions:

– Do they share your fitness goals?
– Are they fairly encouraging?
– Do they give up easily?
– Are they at your fitness level?
Part Two: Your Nutrition Plan.

The holidays offer ample opportunities to indulge, so you need to hammer down some guidelines before hitting that buffet line. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t indulge in any seasonal treats, but use moderation. Don’t use the holidays as an excuse to eat until the point of being uncomfortable – will you really miss that bloated feeling? Decide which treats to cut out this year.

Don’t bring edible treats to the office or to parties. Leftovers have a tendency to make their way back home, and you’ll end up eating far more than your share. This year, do everyone a favor by not gifting fattening treats.

When faced with a buffet line, load your plate first with greens, vegetables and lean meats before breads and heavier foods. Also drink water with your meal and keep alcoholic beverages to a 2-drink maximum.

Beware of holiday drinks – most are brimming with calories. Hot drinks from coffee shops, cocktails at parties and creamy eggnog are all very enjoyable, but also all filled with empty calories. Stick with hot tea or unsweetened coffee.

Everywhere you go during the holiday season brings you face-to-face with a plate of sweets. To avoid adding inches to your waist, try the one treat rule. Each time you’re in a social situation that involves sweets just eat one, and enjoy your treat slowly.

You don’t have to gain weight this holiday season. The key is your mindset.

If you approach the holidays with the mindset of, ‘I deserve to indulge and I shouldn’t have to exercise’ then you’ll enter 2015 a few pounds heavier, a little less healthy, and with lower energy than ever before.

I believe that you deserve better. I believe that you should enter 2015 in better shape than you are today, healthier than you’ve been in a long time, and with more energy than you thought possible.

As a personal trainer, a common question I hear from clients is about managing muscle soreness, especially at the onset of a new training routine. It will also sometimes come up when a client is training for a marathon or triathlon and pushing themselves extra hard, or training more frequently than normal. I anticipate these scenarios as a personal trainer, and frequently counsel clients about sore muscle prevention to avert any mishaps, especially if I know they haven’t worked out in a long time, or are heading into intensive training to reach a goal or milestone.

Injury Prevention

Prevention involves being smart about your body and your exercise routine.
Properly fitting shoes, most importantly for running, but also for weight and personal training sessions, go a long way toward preventing shin splints, hip pain, and even lumbar discomfort. Cross training shoes that provide proper side and impact support are optimal for weight training sessions and cardio sessions, which I often include in my personal training appointments. This type of support mainly helps protect against foot and ankle injury.

Improper form or too much weight during a lifting session can stress muscles to the point of over exertion and pain. Going to an open gym on your own shows you have great motivation, but it’s only half the battle. Faced with an enormous room full of equipment and not knowing how each operates can be intimidating, not to mention dangerous. In a one-on-one personal training session I can fine tune the small details of a client’s form, whether it’s their stance, grip on a machine or arm and leg positioning. It may sound surprising, but just a slight adjustment can mean the difference between a great workout and great pain. This is especially true when lifting too much weight. After the first one or two reps, I can instantly tell whether a client can press on and handle the weight, or if the amount will stress them to the point of injury. As a personal trainer there are certain cues that I look for in the hundreds of different exercises I use, and because of my years of experience, I know when to encourage and push, and when to back down on the weight. This is essential to the overall health and progress of my clients.

Muscle Pain Management

It’s just a fact of life that injuries do happen however, and I have five key components to a successful recovery that are very effective.

1. Soak in a hot tub – The warm water will soothe the muscles and relax them.

2. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate – Dehydration can make muscle soreness more painful (not to mention cause hunger and light headedness). Drinking adequate amounts of water also helps flush the toxins out of your system.

3. Sleep, sleep, sleep – Your body goes into recovery mode when you sleep. When your body isn’t moving, it can repair muscles more easily. Your body also synthesizes protein when you sleep, another essential building block of muscle repair.

4. Stretch – Speaking of toxins in the system, gently stretching sore muscles will help break down the lactic acid that builds up after exercise and makes muscles hard and sore.

5. Work Out – On a scale from 1 – 10, with 10 being the worst pain, if you are an 8 or above; take the day off. If you are at a 7 or below, go ahead and work out. Both working out, and a light cardio session will increase the blood flow to the sore muscles, which helps break up lactic acid; the main culprit of muscle soreness.

Building Mental Stamina

Do you find yourself struggling through workouts or cardio sessions, or at a plateau in your fitness? Is your challenge more mental than physical, and you find yourself giving in easier, telling yourself you just can’t do it, or making excuses to not exercise? If that’s the case, you just might need help increasing your mental stamina.

Techniques and tips for building mental stamina or toughness are plentiful; think positive, visualize your goal; don’t beat yourself up, etc. But, just like will power during dieting, what works for one person, might not work for another. However; there is one thing across the board that works wonders for building mental toughness, regardless of your personality type, where you are in your fitness journey, or your age. That single silver bullet is this: proper rest. That’s right. It’s that simple, but it has to be consistent, and for some people, this may be a new way of living.

If you’re a night owl, or have trouble sleeping, proper and consistent rest might be just the prescription you need to build mental toughness to go the distance. Although it has many benefits, proper rest results in three important effects that build mental stamina.

Proper rest:

–       Curbs inflammation. Studies have shown that inflammation is directly associated with increased fatigue.¹ When our body is fatigued, it is not primed for a good workout or cardio session, which definitely breaks down mental resolve and toughness.

–       Boosts emotional stability and decreases depression, which in turn reduce anxiety. These three benefits combined are great building blocks of mental toughness.

–       Increases physical stamina – This is supported by findings that many of the major restorative functions in the body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormone occur mostly, or in some cases only, during sleep².

Studies have also shown that getting enough sleep can also improve reaction time and split second decision making.³ So, it might be time to rethink your sleep habits and routine if you currently just can’t seem to power through your workouts. If you’ve taken the step to get fit, and get your nutrition right, making proper sleep a priority just might be the final move you need to make to bring it all together for maximum performance and well-being.

So, how much sleep do you need? Seven to nine hours — and more if you’re under a lot of stress, or doing intense workouts. And just like you can’t ‘out-cardio’ your diet, you can’t catch up on sleep. If you sleep deprive yourself during the week, and play catch up on the weekends, you’ve cheated yourself 5 out of 7 days of all the great benefits discussed above. So, don’t try to cram one more thing into today. There is always tomorrow, and you’ll have a lot more energy. Just go to bed.

Sources:

 1A 2010 study conducted at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia study found that people getting six or fewer hours of sleep per night had higher levels of inflammatory proteins in their blood than those who get more than 6 hours.

2National Sleep Foundation

32009 study at the University of Texas at Austin with West Point cadets.