By Josh Bowen, on Thu Apr 18, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET The journey to the center of our bodies. What on earth is the core?
“Today class, our experiment is to stay in the gym for 12 hours and ask every person what their goals are.” A landslide will mention “core” “abs” “stomach.” It is our obsession. Another experiment is to watch any informercial, pushing an obscure fitness product, and see how many times they mention “core” or “abs.” I’ll be willing to bet its more times than they mention anything nutrition related. I mean why eat well when you can do crunches, situps and use the shake weight and get ripped. That is until you realize you have to do 250,000 crunches, JUST to burn enough calories to lose one pound of fat…YES just one pound. You can do crunches until you are blue in the face but it won’t eliminate your stomach fat. And on a side note, whatever new product is out there, it won’t speed the results up any faster. So why do we do crunches? Well duh, its to get an 8 pack!
Abs are made in the kitchen, no matter how hard you work your “abs” you cannot outwork your diet. If your nutrition is not up to par, your stomach will not be either. “So what is the core?” “Why do we have to work it?” “How do we work it?” I answer all of the above!
Lets start with what the “core” actually is. The National Academy of Sports Medicine defines it as the Cervical, Thoracic and Lumbar spines and also the Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip complex (stabilizes the body during weight bearing functional movements producing and reducing forces). WHAT? Time for an anatomy lession! PS do not fall asleep, it gets better.
Anterior
- Rectus abdominus- The “abs.” A key postural muscle that flexes the lumbar spine and can aid in respiration
Posterior
- Erector spinae- lower back muscles that extend the vertebral column
- Multifidus- deep musculature that runs from the base of the cervical spine to the sacrum. Main job is the stabilize vertebrae in the vertebral column during movement
Lateral
- Internal Oblique-Compresses abdomen; unilateral contraction rotates vertebral column to same side
- External Oblique-rotates the torso
- Quadratus Lumborum-Alone, lateral flexion of vertebral column; Together, depression of thoracic rib cage
Deep
By RP Nation, on Wed Apr 17, 2013 at 12:30 PM ET Have you ever felt the weight of the world beating down on you? That moment when your struggles are omnipresent and you brace for the impact of impending doom? That you gasp for air, reaching desperately for a glass of water that’s half empty instead of half full?
We’ve all at one time or another had an encounter with Murphy’s Law. If it can go wrong, it will and it will happen thrice as bad as we can ever prepare for. This is my story of trials and tribulations – and the reason why I truly believe the worlds ills can sometimes be solved with a jar of Jiff and a few “likes”:
Why I Wear Combat Boots
January 2012: I was working as an Account Executive for a media company in my debut as a grown up, lugging around a 400-pound briefcase in a pencil skirt and high heels – truly believing that hard work was important, but image was everything. Much to my dismay, those pretty little patent-leather platform-pumps caused the tragic and premature demise of my beloved Camry. To be fair, I had put her through a lot. She lovingly persevered through countless hit-and-runs, a few tows, and the irresponsible behavior that defined college. She and her seatbelt also saved my life that night as I flipped across the highway, landing right side up without a scratch. I threw those heels away the next day.
 Why Loving Your Career Shouldn’t Feel Like A Job
February 2012: There comes a moment in time in one’s life where you realize you have become a hamster spinning on a wheel. I was tired of being tired, giving my all and feeling constant defeat. I like to believe we all possess a sense of intuition, some stronger than others. My gut was screaming at me to make a change – and not my diet – my life. I was so busy that I paid no attention to what sounded like scratching noises coming from my cabinets. That, and the fact that my dog’s food was magically disappearing even though he was gone for a week…
Why Family Comes First
March 6th, 2012: I had become such a drone that it had been months since I made a trip in to see my family – something I have always done regularly and often. I was so self absorbed that I barely noticed my Grandfather reaching for the gas tank lever instead of the door handle. I immediately dismissed it; afraid of causing unnecessary stress and anxiety in our family and myself.
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Christie Mitchell: Adversity: How I Overcame Life’s Struggles With Social Media and Peanut Butter
By Lisa Miller, on Wed Apr 17, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET My last column claimed that balance is possible in the face of chaos. I promised that we are all capable of maintaining inner peace no matter the environmental stressors—that work, play, challenge and rest are healthy integrative aspects of our lives. About the complaint of not feeling vacation-peace and bliss at home, I suggested that intention is everything.
Wehhhhhhhhl, I wrote that column from the window seat of my charming straw-roof cabana in the Yukatan Peninsula just steps from the ocean as a warm breeze kissed my hair. A little voice in my consciousness said, “Writing about stress management from an emotional and geographic location that represent the opposite of stress might not be believable.” Yes, mi pequeno internal voice doesn’t use commas, but it is very wise. And it is true that faith is much easier to write about when times are good.
So today I revisit my claim from the living center of chaos. I have been home for exactly 10 days, and I have weathered exactly 6 mini crisis since my return. 6! This might be a record.
How am I managing, solving, dealing, integrating, going with the flowing now, you ask?
I am leaning on ALL of my rebalancing support strategies. It’s a lot like the saying, “Don’t wait for the fire before buying the hose.” Turns out my impressive hose collection really is useful. And because of it, I think I’m managing with more grace than I used to—it’s clear I’m not going it alone.
One significant resource I relied on this week was prayer. I sat down in a beautiful location near my house where I could feel the vibrancy of nature all around me, and I asked God for help, a lot of it. I remember specifically not knowing what the help would look like for this and that issue, and especially for my daughter Abby, struggling with a problem so deeply that she’d lost her appetite for days, but I asked for the ability to recognize the help when it showed up.
Two days later when she finally felt hungry, Abby had me google the new Dominos in our Andover neighborhood. I dialed and we huddled together over the speaker-phone conveying our dreams of extra toppings. But when it came time for the phone number, pizza boy could not make sense of my cell number. Again and again we repeated it as he typed away on his Dominos Pizza computer, but politely he kept apologizing that there were too many digits.
 After several minutes of this, puzzled and losing patience, we told him we’d call back. Was this some sort of joke? As I clicked “end” on my I-phone, the phone number I had dialed popped up on my screen before shutting off: +44 1264 363333.
Yes, it was a very good joke! I had accidentally tried to order a pizza from Dominos in Andover, in the United Kingdom!
We looked at each other and then at the phone, and then at each other. The swirling confusion around us dissolved into laughter, “Haahaah, the most expensive pizza on the planet, haha haha haha!”
Laughing harder, “After this phone call, we can’t afford pizza, hah hah hah hah hah!”
Stomach hurting and tears streaming, “I hope we’re still hungry next week when it gets here! Hahahahahahaha haahaahaa haaahaaahaahahahahahahahahaha!
We laughed at ourselves for about 10 minutes and then for 20 more as we called our family members to share what we had stupidly, hilariously tried to do.
Finally, with ribs and face hurting we slowed down, exhausted. Abby looked at me calmly and with a new light in her eyes, she said, “I feel so much better.”
Miraculously, what changed for my girl most in those minutes was her own sense of perspective. While the details of her week of struggle remained, suddenly her world felt much bigger than the confine of her problem—what better way to have the point illustrated than to order a pizza from overseas?
But what’s more, when 16 year-old Abby saw that her problem wasn’t her entire life, just merely a part of it, I knew that my prayer had been answered. God comes through every time, and has a most excellent sense of humor, because we want to laugh.
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Lisa Miller: God & Pizza are the Best Medicine
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Apr 11, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
What do you believe you can accomplish? What do you believe you can accomplish with your eyes closed and without thought of quitting or giving up? What is it inside of you that drives you to accomplish the impossible, the improbable and the exceptional?
This clip above is a perfect example of what happens when shut our eyes and keep going. Ignoring pain, forgeting about past failures and inching our way to victory. This can be you. This can be me. This can be anyone. Inside of all of us is a deep rooted fire that knows no quit and no defeat. It is up to you to believe in it.
Things will not always go your way, in fact more times than not it won’t. However, all things are possible through hard work and perseverance. And all things are possible through fitness.
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Apr 9, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I am pretty strong. I have been known to be impressive to my neighbor on the treadmill next to me and to the occasional trainer at Equinox. However, I suck at Pilates. My core is my kryptonite. My husband does Pilates religiously and I keep hoping that the osmosis will kick in, but no such luck. I keep striving nonetheless, because they say that core strength is what matters. And I find that to be true when it comes to the spirit as well.
Think about standing, with your core engaged, as someone tries to push you over. You feel the push but you can stay steady. If your core is not engaged, you might just fall right to the pavement- ouch. Now apply that metaphor (did you get yet that this is a metaphor?) to dating. You meet someone and have a few dates, only to be flat-out rejected. If you are strong in your spiritual core, you will jump right back onto the dating bandwagon and turn your Cablight on. If your soul’s six pack is only a two pack, then you may just seclude yourself with a box of Entenman’s and resolve never to date again. Pilates for your soul is what you need.
A client of mine coined the phrase of being “in the vortex.” I love that concept. It refers to that feeling when you’re aligned with the universe, everything is going your way and you can create any outcome you want. I felt that way when I met my husband. I’ve felt it at many points in my life. But what’s hard is to bring yourself back to that feeling when you’re off your game. When you wake up in the morning in a funk, on the “wrong side of the bed,” how do you get back into the vortex? Pilates for your soul.
 This involves affirmations. And I know your thinking Stuart Smalley right now and you are getting skeptical. (That is if you are old enough to remember when SNL was really funny.) But affirmations do work. And the power of positive thinking can be very powerful. I have helped a lot of people find love and sometimes it just comes down to believing love is out there and remaining unwavering. Strong at your core. Pilates for your soul.
If you meet someone and you are all excited and you start to tell your friends and your mom and they start making you doubt yourself, do not waver. Strong at your core. Pilates for your soul. Don’t even tell people your dating stories (unless you’ve hired a professional like me.) People have the best of intentions but they will always have their own agenda, whether it’s conscious or otherwise. They will try to throw you off your game- they can’t help it- it’s a natural principle. So you have to be strong at your core. Have a picture of how your story ends and stick to it no matter what. Practice your pilates so that no one can throw you off your game. Do your spiritual crunches, in other words, your affirmations. Spend a few hours per week just thinking about what your life will be like when you have the relationship that you’ve always wanted. Picture every detail and then start searching. It won’t take long.
And if you start to falter, just channel Stuart and you can’t go wrong:
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me.”
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Nancy Slotnick: Pilates for Your Soul
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Apr 4, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Sir Francis Bacon (ironically enough) once said, “Knowledge is power.” I firmly stand behind this statement, particularly since we, as trainers, are in an ever changing industry. As trainers, it is our duty to keep up on the newest trends and the latest research to better serve our clients and supply them with exemplary results. But does the learning stop there? Should we just read exercise science journals and acquire high level specializations and certifications? We would be best served to answer that question with a resounding ‘No.’ There is more information out there that is applicable to our journey as health professionals. Personal training encompasses so much that books from all different industries can apply to our jobs. Here a four of my favorites:
Motivational Interviewing by Miller and Rollnick
Motivational interviewing is a technique used by clinicians to overcome the ambivalence that keeps many people from making desired changes in their lives. Personal trainers can find this technique particularly useful in the first client interview and when clients are not getting the desired results, for one reason or another. Adding this to your repertoire adds another level of professionalism and expertise to make you a high class trainer.
Working with Emotional Intelligence by Goleman
Similar to motivational interviewing, emotional intelligence expands on psychological importance of being able to read emotions in clients and in our selves. Understanding our client’s emotions, day to day, is an important skill to realize and utilize because of the dynamic that most clients bring us every day. This book does a great job of explaining the concept and also how to implement it into everyday life.
 Relationships 101 by Maxwell
John Maxwell is my favorite writer, regardless of industry classification. In this book, he details how to create long lasting relationships with people. Of any skill, relationship building is the most important. Personal training is relationships; how fast and how many we make determines our success or failure as a personal trainer.
21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by Maxwell
As an educator, I would always tell my trainers that personal training is about leadership and most importantly about influence (John Maxwell’s definition of leadership). This book has shaped me as a professional, more so than any other. The lessons, or laws, Maxwell presents can be applicable in any client-to-trainer relationship. This book is a must-have for any fitness professional.
I have found that readings from other industries or specialties have made me a better fitness professional. Knowledge truly is power and what we do with that power is even more important.
By Lisa Miller, on Wed Apr 3, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I’ve been lulled to sleep for two nights by the constant thrum of the sea meeting shoreline outside my cabana. This morning when my daughter Abby awoke after 11 hours of sleep, she said, “How is it only 6:30am?”
Welcome to vacation where time expands!
I think that “vacation” is misunderstood. There is typically no more obvious time in life when we are more present, aware, and happy. It’s here, away from the rigors of usual demands (and ironically the reliable comforts of home) that we come home to ourselves–act in accordance with the natural rhythm of our internal needs and desires.
Vacation implies that everything is left behind: work, school, bills, responsibilities, relationships, routine. But, is all that stuff really the everything of our lives, or is it just the stuff we’re in the habit of thinking of as everything?
Abby is nearly 17, a junior in high school and feeling the pressure of looming AP finals, end of year exams, and ACT testing (dinosaurs, the ACT is the new SAT). So stressed and controlled by these things, she believed she didn’t have “enough time” for spring break this year.
So one of us kept a clear head and here we are. We’re just over two days into our beachside vacation and she has easily retained more study knowledge than she usually manages (painfully) in three days. And, she’s most definitely taking breaks to sun herself, swim, shop, swing in the hammock, walk along the beach, eat, read fiction, and nap.
This excursion to Mexico with said previously stressed teenager was actually a little experiment in faith, for me. I knew in my heart that if she could study at home, she could do so here while drinking from a coconut and looking at the water each time she lifts her head. I wanted her to experience this combination of daily integrated, rest/play/work, because this stress-less integration is what I want for her for the rest of her life.
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Lisa Miller: It Turns out that Vacation is not Just a State in Mexico
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Mar 28, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET  I juice. Yes me.
Oh you thought I meant steroids? No, juicing is not about adding extra hormones in your body, this is about increasing your energy levels, improving your immune system and being healthy. OK. Lets start over. Recently, I decided to start adding juicing into my regular diet. I had heard the benefits of juicing but wasn’t clear on ALL the benefits it had and what it could do to my body. So, me being me, I decided to throw caution to the wind and try it. The first juice I had tasted like roadkill. No seriously it tasted that bad but again, me being me, I was able to force it down. Over the next few weeks I tried several different types of juices and found some miraculous things. My energy levels were boosted, my workouts were better and I felt healthier (a relative term but I acutally feel this way).
Not only do I feel better but the taste of organic kale, beets and other vegetables has improved dramatically. So you may be asking why would you start doing that? Or how can you stand to drink that stuff? And probably you are asking what are the benefits? Well, I want to cover all of these topics. Lets start with what juicing actually is.
Juicing is typically done through a juicer, whereas combinations of different fruits and vegetables (preferably organic) are put into a machine that mixes it together and creates a “juice.” What is lost through the juicing process is the fiber. Most juicing purists argue leaving the fiber out of the juice allows the body to absorb the nutrients faster, I tend to believe this as well because fiber naturally slows down digestion. It does take a lot of vegetables/fruits in order to get a sizable amount of juice (this is why I buy the juice instead of doing it myself). Locally, I have bought juice from the Lexington Juicery and also found a brand of juice at Whole Foods called Suja that acutally has an expiration date longer than juice made at the juicery. This is helpful to me so I do not have to go to the juice store everyday.
OK JB. What are the health benefits?
Well there are many. Here are a few:
1. Digestion- very little energy is needed to digest fresh fruits and vegetables. Thus, juicing increases the effectiveness of our digestion system. This is important when considering how long it takes to digest a pound of lean beef.
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Josh Bowen: I Got the Juice
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Mar 21, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I’ve often wondered about certain strategies gym goers employ. The one strategy that has vexed my mind is a ritual of sorts and a lot of people do it every day. You know if you do something every day and expect a different result, that makes you crazy rightJ. It is at like the Holy Grail, the very reason people come to the gym and try to eat right, it’s the difference between a good day and a bad day, it is the end all be all. It is stepping on the scale! Don’t try to pretend you don’t do it because we all are guilty, especially in a place where there are scales and we are trying to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same. But the very fact people are control by this instrument, this measurement of body mass can be alarming and skewed. The end all be all may not be “all” its cracked up to be.
 Let’s back track for a second. What are we trying to do? Most people? Answer is losing weight. Statistics show the most common goal for any gym goers is losing weight. But that should really be the goal? The answer is yes and no. If you are 50 lbs overweight and you need to lose 50 pounds then I would say losing weight would be a great goal for you. However, if you are trying to lose 10-20 pounds, does it really matter what the scale says as long as your body fat changes? Of course not! I use to tell clients all the time; if I could have you weigh the same weight you are today and look 100% different, would it matter what the scale said? 9 times out of 10, the number didn’t matter.
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Josh Bowen: End All Be All (Tales of the Dreaded Scale)
By Lisa Miller, on Wed Mar 20, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET “Shit happens. I realized then that we always have the choice to either let it remain on the dung heap, or allow it to transform.”
I’m still celebrating International Women’s Day, but I’m calling it Fantastic InterGenerational Women in my Life Month.
I feel so lucky to know some really compassionate, hilarious, brave, nutty, wise, strong women, and they come in an array of decades. I often wish I could gather all of them into one room so that they could know one another. (Hmmmmmmmmmm! What are all y’all doing on my birthday this summer?)
This March 2013, I want to celebrate one Fantastic in particular, but I’m not sure of how she’d feel about the personal publicity, so I’ll use The Fake Name Generator here and henceforth refer to my friend by her alias.
Delvonia Fansmetonopolis is a dedicated rehabilitation therapist. In her 70’s she is beautiful and hip, and people feel they can tell her anything because she has such a welcoming way about her. She laughs with you when you laugh, and cries with you when you cry. Her heart is bigger than she is tall, and she truly wants healing for everyone—this is her mission.
While this mission may be true for most service professionals and healers, what’s unique about D is her dedication to her own personal healing. In her seventh decade, she is truly a role model who LIVES the healing she recommends to everyone. She’s not shy to confide that she is always learning, growing, finding new inspiration—that her health depends on physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. She teaches that here is no one magic pill, and having survived her own debilitating years of despair, D’s courage and commitment to a life of balance gently but surely precede her when she enters a room.
It’s this vital energy that is a gift to anyone seeking his/her own courage and balance. Because recovery is such a raw and painful process, the promise of healing carried in the aura of the facilitator means everything, even before a word is spoken, and certainly in the spaces between words.
 Nearly three weeks ago, my friend needed an unexpected surgery on her spine. She was told that without it she would lose the ability to walk. No picnic either way—she felt she had no choice.
Though nervous, as anybody would be, D faced her surgery bravely and gets high marks for recovery to this point (though she was calling patients from her bed despite the fact that she barely had a voice in the days after surgery.) But it is something else entirely that inspires and moves me each time I talk to her.
Simply, my friend D is FULL of grace, love, patience, and gratitude.
How easy it would be to feel sorry for one’s self—the pain, the genetic misfortune, the inconvenience, the terror associated with this type of diagnosis. But instead, she has chosen to move with the very flow of her life; she is present in the now and she is finding a way to smell the flowers (well, she’s not bending down but she’s enjoying them symbolically)!
I wouldn’t have guessed that each of my “consoling” post-surgery calls to her would leave ME inspired and reassured, but they have, each and every one. D’s ability to see her situation as an opportunity for deeper healing is transforming her very situation.
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Lisa Miller: Fantastic Grace
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