My little brother got into this prepping thing a few years ago where he would prepare for the end of the world by stocking piling food, water, MREs and other supplies.  I think that kind of thing makes sense, but I'm not 100% sure. 

I said to Kevin, "so you're preparing for the end of the world?" 

Kevin said:  YES.

As a personal trainer I think about a few things when it comes to this...  What about exercise?  Are you in good enough shape to actually deal with an apocalyptic event?  

I think that having a few months of MREs is helpful to have on hand in case there's an EMP, which is probably the most likely to occur as far as apocalyptic events go.  Either an EMP or a "Don't Look Up" (netflix movie) is probably the most likely cause any of national emergency situation.  

This topic is a little bit off topic for a health & fitness blog so I wrote a guide on his website called Physical Fitness for Preppers.  Let me know how you like it!

There is no doubt that sitting is the new smoking...  But don't tell anyone because people sitting for 8-12+ hours a day keeps me in business.  Fixing that low back pain, knee pain, and jacked up shoulder girdle are my specialties.  However, my schedule is very close to filling up so I've got to spill the beans on how to prevent these aches and pains!

Voodoo Bands - that's one hell of a name.  What the hell are those?

Voodoo bands are a simple (somewhat!) way to rid yourself of aches and pains.  Heavy compression is a great way to move the trash (inflammation) out, and allow the groceries (good blood) to surge into your problem area.

In addition to getting good nutrient filled blood right surging into the problem area you can make significant changes to the body with the use of voodoo bands including:

• Improving Joint Mobility
• Relieving Pain (seriously - it's almost like its magic)
• Decreasing your Recovery Time

Voodoo bands are a great way to make changes in our joints and tissues through heavy compression and movment.  You can use these bands...

• Before your workout (Prime Time Fitness ftw!) 
• After your workout to help recovery
• When you're not working out  (I personally spend 15 minutes doing mobility before bed)

Kelley Starret, a popular Crossfit mobility guru invented Voodoo bands, but he's super hard to understand in his videos.  Kinetic Spots Rehab has a great video on it which is linked below.  He does everything right, except he needs to learn how to grow a beard.  (seriously.. like what is that?)

A solid round of mobility will have you prancing around like freaking Bambi because you'll be feeling so good!  

​At Will Power Personal Training, mobility is a huge part of our personal training programs, and we're planning on having a mobility workshop soon!  If you'd like to know when that is and get other tips & tricks just put your email up in the newsletter box above.  

Having a hard time figuring out what to do in the gym on your own?  

Have you been trying different exercise programs from magazines, fitness blogs, or iphone apps?  

Sounds like a freaking blast!  Not really, actually - that sounds like a bloody nightmare.  There is a ton of bad information out there about exercising, losing weight, and honestly everyone you talk to will have a slightly different opinion.  

Why should you listen to me?  You can read about my Personal Training Background if you like.  To sum it up real quick is that I went to school for this.  I have my degree in Health Exercise Science.  On top of that I've got my NASM Personal Training Certification, Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification, and CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coaching Certification.  

Not impressed?  Try this out on your own...  and see for yourself.  

5 Qualities of a Great Workout!

1. Lose Weight & Gain Muscle (trim & tone for you ladies)
2. Safe exercises, because nothing stands in your way to the body of your dreams like a torn ACL!
3. Corrective exercises, because chances you're among the 75% of the world that has back pain.  (get rid of it)
4. A Fun Workout!  Losing weight needs to be something you're looking forward to.
5. Easy! Like SUPER-EASY. 

I'm sure these 5 steps didn't look SUPER-EASY...  Let me break it down for you.

You'll want your warm up to handle the majority of your corrective exercise.  Corrective exercise is done for two reasons:

1. Loosen Tight Muscles
2. Activate Weak Muscles

For example, if you suffer from low back pain there is a very good chance you have tight hips and a very weak butt.  You'll want to stretch your hips, and do some glute raises to activate your butt.  Throw in 5 minutes of walking on the treadmill or 50 jumping jacks and you've got a better warm up than 90% of the people at gyms in Danbury CT.

Instead of looking around the gym to see what the biggest dude or fittest chick on the gym floor is doing just follow these simple steps!

1. Find a pushing exercise that you're good at.  Some examples of pushing exercises are: pushups, bench press, dumbbell chest press, and handstand pushup.
2. Find a pulling exercise that is fun.  A few examples of pulling exercises are: pull up, assisted pull ups, inverted row, and seated cable row.
3. Find a squatting exercise that you love.  There isn't much variety for squats, but you can definitely choose from a regular squat, jump squat, sumo squat or a barbell squat.
4. Find an exercise with a bend in it.  Examples of a bending exercise are:  deadlift, kettlebell swing, more hip extensions, and cardio rowing.
5. Find a core stability exercise.  The best core stability exercises are planks, hollow holds, and more planks.  Add some weight to your plank or put your hands on a ball to make it more interesting. 
6. Find an exercise that requires balance.  Personal Trainers call this proprioception which is a fancy way of saying unstable, but stable.  You can start with doing one arm exercises or balacing on one leg, and progress to squats on the BOSU ball or pistol squats. 

Crossfit has done a great job at making some of the workout styles very popular as of late.  Those Crossfitters need to work on their corrective exercise, but that's another blog post entirely.

Choose from one of these styles of workouts to keep things fun, easy, and effective.

AMRAP - As many reps as possible in a period of time.  For example you may grab 6 exercises you like from above, and toss them together for a spicy 12 minutes straight.  In that 12 minutes you'll be able to set a record, write it down, and beat it in later workouts.

Ladder - Ladders are the most fun workout types, because you start with a high number and slowly work your way down.  For example, you might start with 60 seconds balancing on 1 leg, 50 seconds in a plank, 40 kettlebell swings, 30, 20, 10, etc.  You get the idea behind this workout style!

Strength - Strength focused workouts are used to get really good at one specific exercise.  For example if your goal is to do a pull up then you'll want to do 5 sets of 3 assisted pull ups with 1 minute of rest in between.  After your strength workout you can add in a AMRAP or rounds. 

Rounds -  Similar to the Ladders, this workout requires you to do "X" number of rounds of a workout to be done.  For example you might have 10 pullups, 10 pushups, 10 squats, 10 kettlebell swings, 10 seconds in a plank with a 45 pound weight on your back, and 10 pistol squats.  Your goal is to do 3 rounds, with 2 minutes of rest between each round.  

You'll now want to take your warmup, exercises, workout style and throw them all together into a fun & effective workout.  I'm writing this post for Jody, because she wanted to have some easy workouts to do up at school.  Here's one of Jody's workouts:

Make sure to get your cooldown in.  A cooldown is a great time to work in some mobility for any injuries you may have.  If you've got any back pain then start with 10 press ups, and work into a hip flexor stretch.  

I always make sure my clients are learning a new mobility or stretch prior to leaving the gym.  

Take time to reflect on your workouts.  What was hard?  What was easy?  Did I push myself hard enough?  Ask yourself those questions, and write down your workouts so you can come back to beat those times.  

These workouts will help you keep yourself accountable.  If you still need someone to help you be accountable then just give Will Power Personal Training CT a quick call at (203) 260-0639 or shoot us an email at willpowerfitnessnf@gmail.com

Jody, kick some butt at school!  Keep working at it, and you'll succeed.