Most of us have been taught to believe that health is determined by visible body fat and weight. Actually, “looking fat” and the number on the scale are poor determinants of health. This blog post tells you the truth about body fat, body mass index (BMI), body composition, and how to find your body fat percentage.
Remember: Only you can determine what health means to you! Educate yourself so that you can be your best self, naturally. READ MORE at Runtastic
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The body is an incredible machine. It can heal and protect itself, so long as the mind listens and adapts to the body’s needs. That includes respecting any injury that might occur. Just like all machines, the body can break down. But with regular maintenance and check-ups, small accidents are unlikely to result in long-term damage. Here’s common types of sports injuries, their causes, prevention, and treatment...
Read more: https://www.runtastic.com/blog/en/sports-injuries/ England, 2016
I had to sneak into my roommate’s kids’ room, shuffle some toys around, and then search YouTube to get a workout in. It was England, 2016, when I was broke and renting rooms in family homes. I was also writing a book. If you’ve ever written a book, you’ll know that you’ve gotta’ honor the flow when the flow is there. I’d spend days in my room writing like a madwoman. Until then, I’d been a gym rat. I was the person who’d plan my entire day around my workout. I’d been a seeker of group fitness classes since age 15. Suddenly, desperately, I’d found something that took priority over fitness. But, still: I noticed that if I didn’t get some sort of movement during the day, my writing suffered. My eyes started to burn and my fingers became less responsive on the keyboard. My thoughts were less creative, thorough, and funny. But to leave my home-- nay, to leave the bedroom-- would have broken the writing spell. So, I searched online for fitness classes. Finding Online Fitness My first experience with online fitness was Fitness Blender on YouTube. God Bless that couple. They set the stage for everyone else. Not only did they make workouts happen at home, for the masses, but they offered professional fitness instruction: concise cues, modifications, a positive attitude, and excellent demonstration. They sweated with us! To this day, Fitness Blender is THE OG for online workouts. (Please note: the love is legit. Fitness Blenders has no idea who I am and did not sponsor this post). As soon as the last chapter was complete, you better believe that I jumped straight back into the gym. In retrospect, I probably should have stayed home and edited. My book is an editing disaster. But I LOVED being part of group fitness classes. Returning To the Gym Which is odd, considering that I am not the most outgoing group fitness student. While I accidentally make my presence known by being physically rambunctious, I prefer the community vibe without too much chit-chat. Anyone who has taken my classes is either rolling their eyes or manually lifting their jaw after it fell open in shock. Seriously: I’m a secret introvert! Surprisingly, after my self-imposed exile and then wholehearted return to the gym, I missed at-home fitness. I could work out in my pajamas, save a lot of time commuting, and choose my exercise format and intensity with specificity. Plus, I could cut and refresh my gym membership depending on how much I earned every month. I began mixing classes at the gym and outdoor exercise with online YouTube courses. Three Ways To Love Exercise Exploring fitness in such a variety of ways helped me to better understand my mind and body. Now, I see that I love working out in three different ways.
Why Am I Telling You This? I want you to understand why I believe you should pay for my online fitness classes. And why I believe that you should try to work out with me in person. And why I think that you should also find fun exercise outdoors. I create my fitness offering based on two things: experience and training. Yes, I am a professional who’s trained to help you maximize movement. But I would also never ask you to do something that I wouldn’t myself do. And I’d never exercise in just one way. Moreover: I’ll never coach you on something that I haven’t already completed successfully. The Value Of Seeing You As a professional, I love being able to see my students LIVE every so often. It only takes a class or two for me to notice my students’ movement patterns, their tolerance for intensity, and any limitations they might experience. After that, I continue to cue those needs in online classes. That’s why I offer private online and in-person classes without subscription requirements in as many time zones and geographies as possible. Do I think that online fitness is dangerous because I can’t see my students? Heck no. I have seen more injuries from folks trying to impress each other-- or just keep up with the pack-- in group classes. I believe that at-home fitness offers a safe space for people to explore their bodies. When you work out at home, you can take the higher-or-lower intensity option without worrying about what the people around you will think. You can press pause and get some water. You can do ½ a class. And because there are few external distractions, you’ll probably hear the cues better and check your form. In Summary Like you, I move for complex and personal reasons. I want to move; I want to be with other humans moving; I want to move with the world. By creating an online fitness habit, I fulfill all fitness motives. I never get bored. My body is fit front-to-back, deep-to-superficial, brain-to-bones fit. Not in a weird veiny kind of way. In an agile and responsive kind of way. I can only credit that with regular exercise in a diversity of formats. That’s possible because I work out at home, online, and in the world. I encourage you to do the same. |
AuthorWhen not teaching fitness, I write for adidas Runtastic. When not writing for them, I write for myself. Read my sports musings here (sometimes you will be re-directed to my posts at Runtastic.com) Archives
August 2022
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