By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Sep 23, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET 
Our very own personal fitness advisor, Josh Bowen, is getting some big press for being named one of the ten top personal trainers in the world.
Check out an excerpt from today’s story in the Lexington Herald-Leader:
After 10 years in the business, personal trainer Josh Bowen is accustomed to meeting strangers and tailoring a fitness program to their goals.
But his comfort zone will be challenged this week in England, where he’ll be competing in a contest that will judge his abilities.
Bowen is a finalist in the Life Fitness Personal Trainers to Watch competition, which will be Friday in London. Ten personal trainers will be judged on their abilities to motivate, praise and collaborate with a client. The winner receives $5,000 and bragging rights.
Some 1,500 applicants from 43 countries applied to take part in the competition.
Bowen, 31, said that when potential customers approach him, “I have to quickly try to make a relationship with them, draw out their goals and nutrition, and then I show them what I do. I’m used to doing that on the fly — that doesn’t intimidate me at all — but I really don’t know what to expect (in London). I don’t know who I’m going to be training.”
Nevertheless, Bowen said, he is confident and ready.
“If there’s anything I’m going to compete in, this would be it. That’s not to say I’m going in cocky, but I have a confidence about myself,” he said.
…
Another fan of Bowen is former state treasurer Jonathan Miller, whose Recovering Politician publishing company will print Bowen’s book, The 12 Steps to Fitness Freedom, in January.
“There are 12 steps every body needs to get results from fitness,” Bowen said. “It goes through all the things I would go through with a client. I can touch more people that way.”
Bowen has been Miller’s personal trainer for years and has helped Miller with “middle-age maladies” like lower back pain.
“He really has a holistic approach to personal training,” Miller said. “It’s not just going to the gym to lift weights. (In the book) he’s able to combine all those things into something the average reader can grasp.”
Click here for the full story.
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Sep 19, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET With Nancy Slotnick providing dating advice and Jeff Smith counseling politicos, we’ve decided to add a new feature at The Recovering Politician from which every member of The RP can reap benefits: health and fitness advice. Our teacher is Josh Bowen, the Quality Control Director for Urban Active Fitness. Josh has spent the past 4 years directing and leading 400 personal trainers in 7 states. Before that, he served severak years as a personal trainer, with his most difficult client being The RP himself. The strength regime designed by Josh helped The RP overcome two decades of upper back problems.
And now, every Thursday at 8:30 AM, he offers advice for you and your families.
If you have any health and fitness questions, please send them to Staff@TheRecoveringPolitician.com.
To launch this column at The Recovering Politician, I have compiled a list of strategies to keep our kids active.
A friend of mine, who is an elementary school teacher, told me that her kids are only alloted 15 minutes of recess a day. Often times the teachers are under such scrutiny to hit certain test scores that PE and recess are but on the backburner. If the school systems would only take a look at several studies that show the more active a child (or adult for that matter) is the better their mind words to absorb vital information. So by limiting and abolishing recess and PE we are doing a disservice to our youth. We have to take matters into our own hands to keep our kids moving and active. These strategies are not revolutionary but they are helpful. Here we go!
Strategies to Keep Kids Active
1. Promote Activty, not exercise- Huh? Yeah! Promotion of exercise and workouts are not going to get your kids hyped up to go to the gym or even ride their bikes for that matter. They may not be ready for “exercise” but they will more than enjoy activity. This keeps the young mind that loses interest quickly, on task and having fun. I suggest the following:
– Active Play: ditch the video games and play catch, hide and go seek, Simon says and twister. Go old school, take it back to when you were a kid and you played hide and go seek for hours. Remember how much fun that was? I can’t tell you the last time I heard a kid talking about hide and seek, they would rather play Halo. Halo ain’t got nothing on hide and go seek (forgive me, I am from Kentucky)!
-Try an Active Party: In the summer time throw a party for your kids at the batting cages or in the winter a blowing party would fit the bill. Old school mentaility but activity nonetheless. This may inspire your young ones to pick a sport or find a hobby, all of which is great!
– Give them a Choice: Yes, they should be consulted with these decisions. A ten year old is not going to do something they do not want to do. So back door them, get them to pretend it was their idea and watch what happens!
2. Limit Screen Time- A surefire way to increase your child’s activity level is to limit the number of hours he or she spends in front of a screen — including television, video games and online activities. For example, you might consider a limit of one or two hours a day and, for a better night’s sleep, no screen time in the hour before bed. To make it easier, don’t put a television in your child’s bedroom, don’t watch television while you’re eating dinner, and restrict computers and other electronic gadgets to a family area. Also consider limiting other sedentary activities, such as text messaging or chatting on the phone.
Read the rest of…
Josh Bowen: Strategies to Keep Kids Active
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Sep 12, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET When starting a nutritional program, counting calories could be the most tedious part.
It also can be 25% off because of the altering of food and package labels.
Try this approach for better results and easier process:
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Sep 10, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET Combing this past week’s news stories for a song idea was fairly discouraging – I can’t find anything funny about the possibility of air strikes against Syria, not to mention the human rights atrocities there. I’ve already done a song about Congressional gridlock, the sequester just keeps getting more depressing, and while Anthony Weiner has made a few headlines, it’s been for rage-aholic rants, not for titillating texts. Moreover, I realized many of my weekly songs are my way of responding to unpleasant news, hoping to find some humor in what otherwise would have me yelling, Weiner-style, at the computer, t.v. screen or newspaper.
But one happy story popped up, and not only is it good news, it’s also completely bipartisan, non-political yet totally newsworthy, and makes me smile whenever I think about it – Diana Nyad’s record-shattering swim from Cuba to Florida. After finally achieving a feat she’d been attempting unsuccessfully since 1978, as she emerged from the water she made three quoteable points, including a graceful acknowledgment of the team supporting her, but the one that struck me was “You’re never too old to chase your dreams.”
We have longer life expectancy today than ever before, and yet our culture still puts such a premium on youthful achievement that we feel like failures if we haven’t won a Tony Award or been a celebrity guest playing ‘Not My Job’ on “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” by the age of 30. (Or made our first million, or won an Olympic medal, or dated a member of One Direction, or whatever your particular dream happens to be.) So to celebrate the achievements of a woman who’s been eligible for AARP for 14 years gives me renewed faith in possibilities for those of us over 50. (Which is when you start getting those AARP mailers, as if it wasn’t hard enough to hit that milestone!)
So I am celebrating Ms. Nyad’s accomplishment in song, as well as acknowledging other feats achieved by AARP-eligible folks. And sure, I haven’t really had any videos go viral (despite the line I love to use from my 17-year-old, who saw that a few had topped 1,000 views and informed me that it was ‘viral for old people’), but who knows? It took Diana Nyad 35 years from her first attempt to achieve her dream – and posting youTube videos is much less strenuous!
“Diana’s Song (You’re Never Too Old To Chase Your Dreams)”
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Sep 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Yesterday’s –first day jogging. Good news; bad news.
Bad news first. Ran just under 1/8th of a mile before capitulating.
Good news.
All things considered, it was a brisk oace for the entire 1/8th of a mile…except for the last 10-12 feet.
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After yesterday’s Herculian workout, I feel am ready for the Tinsel Man Competition (Not to be confused with Iron Man).
 Iron Man regime:
Run 26.2 miles
Bike 112 miles
Swim 2.4 miles
Tinsel Man regime:
Run 1/8th of a mile from house
Walk 1/8th of a mile back to house
Shoot 2 baskets on backyard basketball goal–one jump shot and one lay-up (before going inside and showering)
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Sep 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Aug 29, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Aug 27, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET For anyone who doesn’t known someone in 12-step recovery or who doesn’t have a folk-wisdom-spouting Bubbe (or Nona or Grammy or Nana, etc.), “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” This perhaps-overused aphorism has so many useful applications, I won’t bore you with too many. (Let’s just say in our house, it applies to everything from why I don’t keep Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the house, to our current search for an alarm clock guaranteed to wake a 17-year-old boy.)
In politics, however, very few people seem to follow this wisdom. I imagine it’s partially because everyone is ‘preaching to the choir’ (another folk aphorism, although not one I ever heard from any Bubbe, which is Yiddish for Grandma . . . but I digress). That is, public figures mostly give speeches to please the people who already agree with them, which makes sense – constituents or fans know what to expect, and it also makes life much easier for political comedy writers who all start salivating whenever Donald Trump says he’s going to make any kind of announcement.
The insanity of repetition gets a bit out of control when it comes to legislation. It’s one thing for gun control advocates to come up with a variety of new laws, or for abortion foes to get creative in how they make it difficult for clinics to stay open – whether you agree or disagree, at least those groups are trying to adapt to reality instead of doing the same thing over and over. But what’s with the 40 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act? On top of the fact that it’s getting to be a punch line, and these repeal votes are clearly fruitless, it does seem somewhat hypocritical for a supposedly fiscal conservative bunch to be wasting so much time and taxpayer money. (According to a CBS estimate, based on nonpartisan data about the cost of a congressional work week, each repeal vote costs $1.45 million, which makes the total over $50 million so far.) I don’t even want to think about how $50 million compares to my financial situation . . . but at least, on the brighter side, it makes the expenses for my college-bound son seem pretty reasonable by comparison.
At a certain point, it’s prudent to give up fighting and ‘surrender, Dorothy’ – so to help the GOP get unstuck, here’s a musical reminder that “Obamacare Isn’t Scary!”
By Michael Steele, on Fri Aug 23, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Last summer when the Supreme Court delivered its surprising affirmation of the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct (a.k.a “Obamacare”), liberals rejoiced and sang the praises of the very court they had, up until then, vilified; and conservatives scratched their heads at the perceived betrayal by Chief Justice John Roberts and renewed their call to “repeal and replace” the law after the November elections.
But Obama won, Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate and Republicans lost 8 seats in the House.
We’ve come a long way since those heady days. And still, the news on Obamacare has not been all that great.
Recently, one of the architects of the legislation, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), actually admitted that the Affordable Care Act “is beyond comprehension”; while another, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) called it a “train wreck.” But it was Henry Chao, Obama’s chief technical officer in charge of putting in place the insurance exchanges mandated by the law, who caused heads to turn when he said “I’m pretty nervous . . . Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.” With supporters like that…
Certainly, actions taken by the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leading up to implementing the convoluted law have not helped assuage the perceptions of members of Congress, let alone the American people. Forced to suspend the employer mandate to offer insurance to employees, the Administration finds itself in a mad scramble to play down the administrative SNAFU by playing up lower premiums for all while blaming those pesky Republicans for putting the administration in this situation in the first place.
But House Republicans (like Senate Democrats) only get to vote up or down on legislation. It is the agencies and departments of government (run and managed by the administration) that must implement the law. And for this administration, the hit parade of problems continue to mount. For example, while most Americans were enjoying their 4th of July holiday and not paying attention, HHS sheepishly announced, in a “final ruling” it will not attempt to verify individual eligibility for insurance subsidies. Instead it will rely on individuals “self-reported eligibility”. So I get to tell HHS I’m eligible and they write a check subsidizing my insurance? I can’t think of a more sublime invitation to massive fraud.
Read the rest of…
Michael Steele: How Republicans should fix Obamacare
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Aug 22, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET We are so very proud that our resident personal fitness guru, Josh Bowen, has been named one the top 10 finalists in the 2013 Personal Trainers to Watch competition by Life Fitness. From their press release:
 SCHILLER PARK, Ill., AUGUST 21, 2013 – Life Fitness, a global leader in fitness equipment manufacturing, announces the top 10 finalists in the 2013 Personal Trainers to Watch competition, a program recognizing personal trainers around the world who demonstrate exceptional leadership, client support, motivation and inspiration. The 2013 competition generated more than 1,500 entries from 43 countries, from which emerged 10 elite finalists who will compete at Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Centre St. Albans outside of London on Sept. 27th to win the title of the world’s best Personal Trainer to Watch.
The top 10 Personal Trainers to Watch finalists are:
- Josh Bowen, Kentucky, USA
- Simone Campbell, Towradgi, Australia
- Melissa diLeonardo, Illinois, USA
- Cate Grace, Christchurch, New Zealand
- Stephen Holt, Maryland, USA
- Kim Ingleby, Bristol, England
- Mish McCormack, Wellington, New Zealand
- Epsilon Wong, Hong Kong, China
- Blake Robinson, Utah, USA
- Jean Mary Scott, Christchurch, New Zealand
“These finalists change their clients’ lives with their unbridled passion and commitment to healthy living and fitness,” said Chris Clawson, president of Life Fitness. “Their nominations were an inspiration to our judges. We look forward to bringing together these elite trainers and evaluating them first-hand as they share best practices and develop course material that can be used on our cutting-edge Synrgy360 functional training system.”
Finalists were selected based on personal values, innovative training philosophies, education and experience. Judges included experts from Life Fitness and its educational arm, Life Fitness Academy, as well as the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the International Confederation of Registers for Exercise Professionals (ICREPs), the European Health & Fitness Association (EHFA), and past competition winners, Joanne Blackerby and Nicole Nichols.
The top 10 finalists will compete in the program’s first live judging event on Sept. 27, 2013, where they will be judged on their ability to motivate, praise and collaborate with a client, as well as enhance the workout experience and correct exercise performance on the Synrgy360 system. The winner will be announced immediately following, and the entire day will be streaming live on www.lifefitness.com/personaltrainers.html.
The World’s Top 10 Personal Trainers
Josh Bowen, Kentucky, USA
Bowen is a personal trainer at Fitness Plus 2 located in Nicholasville, Ky., and is a quality control director of personal training at Compel Fitness, where he oversees the education of more than 100 trainers in five states. Bowen received a Bachelor of Science degree in exercise science from the University of Kentucky and has been a National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) certified personal trainer for more than nine years. Bowen believes that all things are possible through fitness and motivates his clients to feel the same.
…
About Life Fitness
Life Fitness is the global leader in commercial fitness equipment manufacturing. The company manufactures and sells strength and cardiovascular equipment under the brand names Life Fitness and Hammer Strength and distributes its equipment in more than 120 countries. Headquartered outside Chicago, in Schiller Park, Ill., Life Fitness is a division of Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC).
About Nuffield Health
Nuffield Health provides expert, joined-up healthcare defined by and created for UK health consumers. We are the largest healthcare charity in the UK, providing health services for over 50 years. We are independent of Government, have no shareholders and reinvest our surplus to improve our facilities or provide public health education. We provide access to 15,000 health experts through our 31 hospitals, 65 fitness & wellbeing centres, 200 corporate facilities and 20 medical clinics to help people get healthy, and stay healthy. Nuffield Health is an award-winning not-for-profit, having won Health Investor Social Enterprise of the Year in 2010 and Private Hospital Group of the Year in 2011. We provide fitness and wellbeing services in England and Scotland. We have 65 clubs open to the public and nearly 200,000 members. We hold more than 650 Meet Our Experts free events for the public each year, have more than 1,000 personal trainers to support and motivate our clients and offer each member clinical advice through
our 12-point Health MOT. Last year we provided more than 95,000 of our Health MOTs and found that nearly two-thirds of our members reduced their cholesterol, three-quarters improved their blood pressure, and around two thirds lost more than three per cent of their body weight. For more information about Nuffield Health, visit www.nuffieldhealth.com
About ICREPs
The International Confederation of Registers of Exercise Professionals (ICREPs) is an international partnership between registration bodies around the world that register exercise professionals. ICREPs members operate over four continents, in seven countries, and collectively register over 60,000 individual exercise professionals.
About EHFA
The European Health & Fitness Association (EHFA) is an independent and nonprofit organisation based in Brussels representing the European health and fitness sector at the EU level. EHFA sees its objective to get “More People, More Active, More Often” as a triple-win for European citizens, the EU and the European health and fitness sector.
The EHFA Standards Council is responsible for the direction and strategic thinking for the developing regulatory framework, which underpins public confidence in the work and development of the European Health and Fitness industry. The European Register of Exercise Professionals (EREPS) is regulated by the EHFA Standards Council, serving as an independent body for the registration of fitness professionals who meet the qualifications established by the Standards Council. For further information, visit www.EHFA.eu.
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