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.  

One of my clients skipped a workout the other day because the Gout in his foot was too painful.  Gout sucks, but there are easier ways to get rid of it than you think.  Quick Disclaimer - I'm not a doctor, so this is a suggestion.  This isn't medical fact, and will probably never be medical fact.  When big pharma starts making serious cash off of holistic remedies then you'll see doctors giving you similar advice.  Before I get on a rant...  lets get to the facts!

Did you say 3 quick easy remedies for gout pain?  I sure did.  These fixes for pain caused by gout are just plain simple.

At Will Power Personal Training we already tell all of our personal training clients to chug that nasty holistic goodness known as Apple Cider Vinegar.  Apple Cider Vinegar, also known as ACV is a great anti-inflammatory, and sure enough any remedy with anti-inflammation properties will help to reduce pain.  

Ok, maybe not TONS of cherries, but consuming 15 cherries a day will be able to cut that gout... out!  There have been studies that eating cherries, or drinking cherry juice resulted in a lower risk of new gout attacks.  I'm sure you want to find these studies about cherry's impact on gout, so here you go!  

Will Power Personal Training CT focuses on healing the body farther than just treating symptoms.  Those solutions to gout pain will do more than just treat your gout pain; solutions like apple cider vinegar consumption, eating cherries, and cutting out sugar will heal your entire body.  

Healing your body with natural food from a good source is very important.  To get more information about seeing a "personal trainer near me" in Connecticut read more about Will Power Personal Training, or shoot us an email at willpowerfitnessnf@gmail.com.

By the way, I'm not expert writer so if you find a typo or my grammar is terrible, please let me know.   

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.  

Hey everyone!

Will Power Fitness has grown in the past few months, and we're getting more clients, more results, and more interest from other places besides New Fairfield.  To accomadate that peaked interest in our Personal Training Programs we've changed the name of the website from WillPowerFitnessNF to PersonalTrainersCT!  

Having the domain name PersonaltrainersCT will allow us to reach a broader spectrum of people throughout Connecticut.  My friends & family are always asking if I'd be willing to drive down to Fairfield a couple times a week to do some personal training.  Anyone who's driven from Danbury to Fairfield knows that route 25 is the worst stretch of road imaginable.  

My plan to have a second location of Will Power Fitness in another area of Connecticut within 2017.  In order to accomadate that we need a website without "NF".  Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere!  I love it here at Prime Time Fitness in New Fairfield.