To achieve or not to achieve

Seriously...I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by.  I have felt like that about every month this year but October went especially fast.  Maybe it was the sheer volume of tasks and activities that were before me.  Anyone else concur?  As a side note: only 60 days til Christmas...in case anyone's counting.   ;)

As the year nears its end, we are also given a chance to look back and reflect, reassess and make course changes for the coming year. This is a great time to look at the goals you set for yourself and see where you are at compared to where you would like to be. What steps still need to be taken in order to accomplish what you set out to do?

On that note I would like to take just a minute and look at goals.  There will be many that we accomplish, celebrate and move on from.  While others we may not accomplish, or so it may seem.  It is these goals I want focus on and challenge how you look at them.

When you look at a goal that seems to have been unaccomplished, I would invite you to look at the goal and see if quite possibly there may have been another underlying, unconscious goal that caused you to set the goal in the first place. For example: maybe you were looking for approval or acknowledgement from someone and in the face of not "reaching" your goal you actually accomplished that "unknown" goal, which now sets you free to move forward more powerfully to accomplish the goal you originally set.

Did you follow that?  Let me share a recent example.  A couple weeks ago I set out to run a 50 mile race in Hungry Horse, Montana.  My goals were to enjoy a little vacation the few days before the race, finish between 10-11 hours, eat well, feel good and have fun. Simple right?  I haven't run the distance in over a year and was a bit nervous as I hadn't trained as I would have liked, but I was ready.

The day Shaunie, Rena and I left was beautiful and all was well.  However, upon entering Montana, 2 of our phones stopped having service for the rest of the trip (5days).  The next day I found out my brother nearly lost his life in a motorcycle accident, which caused me to wonder if I should even finish my trip and run the race.  My monthly friend started the day before the race, always a good time in the woods w/no potties. At mile 8 I had a huge hip flexor pain which causes me to limp and almost drag my foot, making running a more difficult task. To top it all off...race day brought unexpected rain, hail, thunder and lighting, which caused me to be soaking wet for 6 1/2 hours of my 11 hours. Good thing I happened to throw in my raincoat!

As I looked back on not finishing closer to the 10 hour mark I found myself wanting to be frustrated and disappointed.  However, upon further examination, I realized I had an unconscious goal of remembering I can do hard things and overcome obstacles as they are placed in my path, and there were just a few of those.  Accomplishing the "unknown" goal allowed me to first -show up and finish the race and second to have fun in the face of those obstacles while doing it.  Yep...I'm a winner!!  And so are you!!

So as you finish out your year, revisit your goals and take a good look at what you may have accomplished without even realizing it and then go and conquer the rest of what lies unfinished. Look how you have grown and be Amazed and remember to Celebrate.  Celebrate the fact that you were willing to take a chance and go for it. Celebrate everything in between the starting line and finishing line. Celebrate how wonderful you really are and then...let someone else know.  :)

Until next time...
Go BE Great!

Jennifer J Saunders
BS, Certified Personal Trainer
ButtinGear
Reiki Energy Therapy
Intuitive Life Coach

Exercise....what does it say about your age?


You Look MARVELOUS!!!
Exercise is known to have many health benefits but did you know that it is the number one way to hold off age related illness at a cellular level?
Not unlike the seam on your jacket, intensive exercise can keep you chromosomes from unraveling. Telomeres are the DNA at the ends of your chains of chromosomes that protect them from damage. When Telomeres are shortened it limits the number of divisions your cells can produce and brings on the again process. When telomeres become critically short the cell dies.
Regular intensive exercise prevents the telomeres from shortening. The researchers measured the length of telomeres in blood samples from two groups of professional athletes and two groups who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers.
"The most significant finding of this study is that physical exercise of the professional athlete’s leads to activation of the important enzyme telomerase and stabilizes the telomere," said Ulrich Laufs, the study's lead author and professor of clinical and experimental medicine at Saarland University in Homburg, Germany.

"This is direct evidence of an anti-aging effect of physical exercise," Laufs said. "Physical exercise could prevent the aging of the cardiovascular system, reflecting this molecular principle."

In addition other studies have shown that exercise protects the cells from other aging effects such as deterioration and programmed cell death. When comparing 32 young professional runners average age 20 and middle-age athletes who had a history of endurance exercise since their youth, against untrained athletes who did not exercise regularly. They were matched in age with the professional athletes. This shows that long-term exercise training activates telomerase and reduces shortening in human white blood cells. The age-dependent telomere loss was lower in the older athletes who had performed endurance exercising for several decades.

What are the keys to exercising for the younger you?

Squats…..’Oh I can’t squat, it hurts my knees’ you hear it all the time. That is actually the point. You squat all the time, picking up the kids, the groceries, or the laundry. Learning to do it right will prevent age related back and hip issues, and create stronger knee joints and less chance of pain.

Maximize your Genes…. While you can’t change your genetic makeup, you can change how certain genes are expressed—that is, how much they do whatever they do. And strength training is one of the best ways to do that. Only 26 weeks of resistance training reverses the aging process at the genetic level. Resistance training also preserves muscle mass; we typically lose 5 lbs. of muscle per decade. We also on average gain 10 lbs. of fat mass per decade, NOT FAIR!!!

Get your brain to the bar….Exercise is the physical crossword puzzle. Sports such as tennis, or racquetball, and choreography like Zumba or kickboxing engage the brain. The more of these types of activities you participate in the better.

Exceed what you think your cardio requirements are….U.S. guidelines say 150 minutes a week, but research shows that for heart health you need to 240 minutes per week. . Aerobic activity improves mitochondrial function (the work of energy-producing organelles in cells), which typically decreases with age.

Use high-impact activity….jumping, you need it. You need the impact to build bone density. This doesn’t mean that you start leaping buildings in a single bound; even a step with the force of squishing a bug can make a difference. Think…squat, lunge, or march with force.

Keep up to pace….average Americans get 2,000 steps a day, but experts recommend 10,000. People who track their steps find that they double the number of steps they take a day. Get a Jawbone, Fit bit, or vivo fit and get in the know.

As always the trainers at MV Health and Fitness Academy are available and excited to help you ward off the effects of aging. There is nothing better than having the energy of someone 10 years younger.

Call us at 208.557.2823 or email questions to ghouston@mvhospital.net.

I felt like I was in a whirlwind...

            The past few weeks I’ve felt the change. I sense the weather beginning to change. The tremendous daylight we had during summer is slowly dwindling. The trees are transitioning through magnificent colors. The longer I live here, the more intensely I feel the changes of the seasons.

            With each season come new feelings, a new mindset, new challenges, new goals and much more!

            My feelings the past few weeks have been those of anxious indecisiveness. Why you ask?

Well, let me start off by saying, I have an “all or nothing” personality. I work on challenging this mindset regularly, but sometimes it gets the better of me for a period of time. This time period came when I was working on my new mindset for the upcoming winter by debating my personal, nutritional, and fitness goals. Working in the field of fitness leads my mind to overthink my goals. “Well, I could do this…or this…or that…or that way as opposed to this way”. “Do I want to work on my physique goals? Do I want to commit to train consistently for my triathlons next year? Do I want to focus on longer running races again? How much time do I want to commit to exercising each week? Do I want to take a cooking class to mix up the variety in my nutritional choices?”

AHHH!! My mind was running with so much! It felt like too many options, too many questions, and too many things to think about. I actually started feeling anxious just typing out all of those examples. SO, what was my initial response? REBEL! “I’m not going to think about any of it. I don’t want to. Maybe I’ll hire someone to train me so I don’t have to think about it. Maybe I’ll hire a physique coach. Maybe I’ll hire a triathlon coach. Maybe I’ll hire a running coach.”

AHHH!! There goes my mind again. It never stops!

            So, really, what was my solution? I had to remind myself, that no matter WHAT goal I choose, ACTION and CONSISTENCY are the most important steps. What if I choose triathlons, but then drop off the training plan in 3 weeks and switch to physique, but then I change my mind again and then I am not any better off than when I first started on this new path of winter.

            So, ACTION and CONSISTENCY. What things are important, to me, to be consistent in, no matter what goal I am training for? I decided to SIMPLIFY and start easy and let the rest come as I gain momentum and confidence the more consistent I am.

            So I started off by listing my OUTCOME GOALS and then the BEHAVIORS I need to begin reaching my OUTCOME GOALS. For the month of October, I choose to focus on reaching a minimum of 64 ounces of water each day and staying consistent with 5 hours of activity per week. Yes! I have a path. I mark on my calendar each night what I accomplished for the day. When I start feeling anxious like I am not doing enough, or other goals are not being accomplished as quickly as I like, or I don’t accomplish my water or workout goal for the day, I just repeat two words until my anxiety dwindles… “ACTION and CONSISTENCY”. “Keep taking action Hayley. Work on consistency.” It reminds me that this goal is for the long haul and not the short term satisfaction!

            Consistency in life really is key!

            Stay tuned for my next entry about Outcome and Behavior Goals. How to identify them and how to take action!

Until next time,

Hayley Jones, BS, CSCS, Pn1

hjones@mvhospital.net

Why squats are the BEST!

Have you ever noticed how some sort of squat variation tends to pop up in every exercise program? That’s because they are great for you, for a bunch of reasons.  Below are a few reasons why, no matter how much you hate them, you should keep them in your program.

1.       Squats engage a ton of muscles.

First, here is a list of the primary muscles responsible for movement in a bodyweight squat: Erector Spinae, Gluteus Maximus (glutes), Quads (Rectus femoris, Vastus intermedius, Vastus lateralis, Vastus medialis), Hamstrings (semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris). And here are the secondary muscles, responsible for stabilization during the squat: Transverse Abdominus, Gluteus medius/minimus (Abductors), Adductors, Soleus, Gastrocnemius

Not only is this a lot of muscles working at once, but these are some of the largest muscle groups in the body. This means relative to other exercises, a high volume of work has to be done per repetition.

2.       Highly functional

I would guess that most people have already done a squat within a half hour of getting out of bed. It’s a movement that is easy to take for granted, but the inability to do a squat would make day-to-day life extremely difficult. Conversely, consider how have a strong squat makes so many daily living activities so much easier, not just sitting down and standing up. Many of the same muscles are used for climbing up and down the stairs, bending down to pick something up, and simply walking around.

3.       Essential base exercise

For those who resistance train recreationally, and not just as a means of exercise, squatting is the most important movement to master. Improvements on squat translate into improvements in virtually EVERYTHING, including cleans, deadlifts, push-press, etc.

4.       Elicit hormone response

Because the squat requires the recruitment of such large motor units, it is one the most effective exercises for triggering a hormonal response, specifically increased levels of testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin growth factor. I know for many of you (ladies) this doesn’t sound like a good thing, but these hormones are largely responsible for increased tone and muscle function.

5.       Prevention of injuries

Squatting requires the use of many muscles essential for balance and stability as well as muscles responsible for maintaining proper posture. Keeping a squat variation in your exercise routine is important for keeping these muscles strong to make sure you stay healthy!