A great documentary...definitely Something everyone should watch
http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/
Showing posts with label REPEAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label REPEAT. Show all posts
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
FAT
Fat. A small word that casts a long, and dark shadow. This tiny, monosyllabic word instills about as much, if not more fear in the hearts of women (and men!) than death.
In fact according to "some scientific study", most people would prefer to die than be obese.
Whether that is true or not, I would not be able to say for sure, however as a personal trainer I do know that many people would do anything to lose weight.... Except eat properly and exercise.
The subject of "fatness",weight, fitness, looking and feeling good, sex appeal, body image, and beauty are blurred and confused. Why do some people with fit looking bodies have poor body image? Why does the woman with curves want to look like an ironing board?
It is exasperating, tiring, and sad when I encounter young women, older women, and increasingly more men who don't like their perfectly functional, healthy, and fit bodies. Do most " dull normals" who workout look like Jamaican sprinters? No, but they also don't eat and train like them... They are not professional athletes!
I think it boils down to balance in life, and respect for the body we were given. The way you seem to yourself and look to others in that body, in my opinion, reflects from how you feel about your body...Mae West was onto something when she said that "sex appeal is 50% what you got , and 50% what people think you've got".
Confidence is beautiful. Health is beautiful, and beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.
This brings me to Crossfit.
One of the reasons why I embraced to CrossFit community was because of the emphasis on strength being beautiful, and the inclusive nature of its programming: whatever shape, size, sex, or age you are, you can benefit from increased health benefits. It was a breath of fresh air! Box gyms void of mirrors and fluff... Only basic strength, fitness and improved health for all.
This concept (although not new) freaked out a whole industry... A HUGE industry: the fitness industry. CrossFit challenged an industry built on the image of being beautiful meant you had the perfect body void of fat, an industry built on selling fitness products and gadgets, infomercials, magazines, supplements, shoes that "tone" your butt 26% more than regular shoes, and get fit quick schemes.
Crossfit was about fitness and health for all.
Emphasis on the past tense. Enter Crossfit's growing pains as well as Reebok.
Crossfit's success may be its own demise: anything that grows in popularity that quickly tends to attract both fervent criticism, as well as people wanting to jumps on the bandwagon and squeeze the goodness out of it.
Reebok, the same company who is currently entangled in a bunch of false advertising lawsuits regarding their Easy Tone clothing lines (that promised to reduce body fat when you wore tenor garments and toning shoes), latched onto to Crossfit in order to revitalize it's brand and breathe life ( and profits) into its lagging sales.
What better forum to peddle and advertise their clothes: the sport of fitness has arrived indeed... And so has all the bullshit that comes along with a multimillion sportswear company trying to capitalize on their investment.
their add campaigns do not involves older or "fatter" individuals... Only hard sweat slick bodies pounding out reps , looking all "elite"... If you look at the more recent Crossfit articles published involving Crossfit athletes there are at least as many booty shorts, bra tops, and silicone boobs as in Oxygen magazine.
Another article claimed that Crossfit could help you go from a 7/10 to a 10 on the hotness scale.
And now the community is morphing, changing, growing, and dividing. Where is will go, we don't really know. I do know that I will continue to enjoy the workouts, the training, and the people in my entourage and community who embrace the same health values and all-inclusive access to fitness as I do.
I will continue to do my best, and be happy with what my body has done and hopefully it will continue to surprise me in it's ability, and good health. I will do my best to respect it, and love it for what it is.
In fact according to "some scientific study", most people would prefer to die than be obese.
Whether that is true or not, I would not be able to say for sure, however as a personal trainer I do know that many people would do anything to lose weight.... Except eat properly and exercise.
The subject of "fatness",weight, fitness, looking and feeling good, sex appeal, body image, and beauty are blurred and confused. Why do some people with fit looking bodies have poor body image? Why does the woman with curves want to look like an ironing board?
It is exasperating, tiring, and sad when I encounter young women, older women, and increasingly more men who don't like their perfectly functional, healthy, and fit bodies. Do most " dull normals" who workout look like Jamaican sprinters? No, but they also don't eat and train like them... They are not professional athletes!
I think it boils down to balance in life, and respect for the body we were given. The way you seem to yourself and look to others in that body, in my opinion, reflects from how you feel about your body...Mae West was onto something when she said that "sex appeal is 50% what you got , and 50% what people think you've got".
Confidence is beautiful. Health is beautiful, and beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.
This brings me to Crossfit.
One of the reasons why I embraced to CrossFit community was because of the emphasis on strength being beautiful, and the inclusive nature of its programming: whatever shape, size, sex, or age you are, you can benefit from increased health benefits. It was a breath of fresh air! Box gyms void of mirrors and fluff... Only basic strength, fitness and improved health for all.
This concept (although not new) freaked out a whole industry... A HUGE industry: the fitness industry. CrossFit challenged an industry built on the image of being beautiful meant you had the perfect body void of fat, an industry built on selling fitness products and gadgets, infomercials, magazines, supplements, shoes that "tone" your butt 26% more than regular shoes, and get fit quick schemes.
Crossfit was about fitness and health for all.
Emphasis on the past tense. Enter Crossfit's growing pains as well as Reebok.
Crossfit's success may be its own demise: anything that grows in popularity that quickly tends to attract both fervent criticism, as well as people wanting to jumps on the bandwagon and squeeze the goodness out of it.
Reebok, the same company who is currently entangled in a bunch of false advertising lawsuits regarding their Easy Tone clothing lines (that promised to reduce body fat when you wore tenor garments and toning shoes), latched onto to Crossfit in order to revitalize it's brand and breathe life ( and profits) into its lagging sales.
What better forum to peddle and advertise their clothes: the sport of fitness has arrived indeed... And so has all the bullshit that comes along with a multimillion sportswear company trying to capitalize on their investment.
their add campaigns do not involves older or "fatter" individuals... Only hard sweat slick bodies pounding out reps , looking all "elite"... If you look at the more recent Crossfit articles published involving Crossfit athletes there are at least as many booty shorts, bra tops, and silicone boobs as in Oxygen magazine.
Another article claimed that Crossfit could help you go from a 7/10 to a 10 on the hotness scale.
And now the community is morphing, changing, growing, and dividing. Where is will go, we don't really know. I do know that I will continue to enjoy the workouts, the training, and the people in my entourage and community who embrace the same health values and all-inclusive access to fitness as I do.
I will continue to do my best, and be happy with what my body has done and hopefully it will continue to surprise me in it's ability, and good health. I will do my best to respect it, and love it for what it is.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Fundraising Update
Fundraising is hard work.
So far I have raised $1875.00 towards the $2500.00 pre-requisite amount to be able to participate in "The Ride". I feel that the fundraising is going very well, considering there are so many worthy causes out there and non-profit organizations vying for your fundraising dollars, I feel truly blessed that my friends, family, and peers are putting their donation money towards this epic fundraising ride to help find a cure for so many cancers.
I am confident that I will be able to raise the $2500.00, so much so that I upped the anti and my goal to $3000.00.
The ride is July 9th and 10th 2011. We leave from the Olympic stadium in Montreal and bike to Quebec city.
I NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET!
Please donate on my personal page :)
Thanks!
Alex
Sunday, August 15, 2010
You've Come A Long Way Baby....
" Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" -- Winston Churchill
While training a new client this week I was reminded of something very important: as athletes and fitness buffs we always want to get faster, stronger, more efficient, perform, and be better athletes; but we must not forget what we went through to get where we currently are, that every failed lift is a lesson, and every small improvement is a victory.
If I look back at my own training past it amazes me how far I have come. To give you an idea here is a little timeline:
As a kid growing up I was a physical, adventurous child. My mom always said that I never learned how to walk: I went from crawling to running. I hated to be confined to a playpen, I needed to run, jump, and do summersaults in the back yard.
When I saw older kids diving off the high board at the pool, I was in awe and practiced (belly flop after belly flop) fearlessly until I could swan off the high board.
20 odd years ago: I used my bike as transportation everywhere, but I got sidetracked from health and I smokes cigarettes in high school. I weighed 115 lbs had no muscle tone, and had a hard time doing 10 shoulder presses with a 5 lb dumbbells. The teen age years were somewhat of a health disaster.
13 years ago a quit smoking, graduated from university, started swimming, and told myself I would get healthy and fit. I had a hard time getting through a 60 minute step and tone class, and did no weight training.
1o years ago I did my first triathlon and loved it! I felt like I accomplished something, I continued to train for triathlon, became quite a good swimmer; but still no weight training
7 years ago I started paddling (dragon boating) and started weight training. I could bench 65 lbs, could do 3 push ups, did not lower body weight training. None. I became a trainer and fitness instructor.
5 years ago I was paddling at a fairly competitive level, my 1 rep max bench press was up to 140lbs, and I could do 13 strict pull ups. Still no lower body work. I was teaching between 10-20 fitness classes a week like spinning, boot camp, etc...
1 year ago I started to train at CrossFit Montreal. It was the first time I started doing barbell weighted squats... 80 lbs was challenging. I learned new skills, started to dead lift, perform olympic lifts and was thinking about technique before weight.
Every WOD (Workout Of the Day) was incredibly challenging and I needed to scale most weights and was not able to do any workout "Rx" (as prescribed with the full weight). My legs were permanently sore, I could not do a proper double under (double skip), could not do a muscle up, kipping pull up, and a 24 Kg kettlebell scared me.
I still have lots of work that I need to do ( see previous post about my "bucket list" of stuff to work on) to improve my performance and lift more, more efficiently; but I also need to allow myself to feel good about accomplishment up until now and take a moment to see how far I have come.
I can do kipping and butterfly pull ups, I can do muscle ups, I can do push ups, clapping push ups. I can dead lift 200lbs ( compared to other women, it's not so huge, but compared to where I started , it's huge for me!), I can back squat 150 lbs, front squat 125 lbs, over head squat 125 lbs, split jerk 145 lbs, and I can do 95% of the WODs as prescribed.
The trend that I see over the past decade or so is that I kept going, kept trying, tried new things, worked harder to better myself, remained consistent, and never gave up.
Some days are hard, some performances are disappointing, some workouts are overwhelming, but as long as you keep learning about what you did wrong, and try again to work at bettering yourself, you're ahead of the game.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Just For Fun All Out
Jacques (owner of CF Montreal), Nic, myself, and Jonathan... Team 6.
CrossFit Montreal celebrated it' s 4th year as Quebec's first CrossFit affiliate , by throwing a great big party the only way they know how:
By hosting a Team Challenge!
Teams of four (minimum one woman per team) people engaged in a fun and friendly competition. There were 2 Events:
Event#1 (For time)
Competition Category (Teams of 4 with a least 1 female)
A. 2 teammates run 800m with a 7kg Ball they can pass to each other when tired.
B. Once run is over, the remaining 2 teammates will share a total of 1000m row ( 1 at a time on rower)
C. Once row is done, 2 teammates will share a total of 100 burpees (1 at a time)
D.Once burpees are done, 2 teammates will share a total of 100 kb swings (24kg/20kg)(1 at a time)
E. 4 teammates will perform a total of 200 pull ups ( 1 person a a time on the bar)
Please note that for all events, you can divide reps as you please amongst teammates but each member as to perform at least one rep of the exercise they were assigned .
Competition Category (Teams of 4 with a least 1 female)
A. 2 teammates run 800m with a 7kg Ball they can pass to each other when tired.
B. Once run is over, the remaining 2 teammates will share a total of 1000m row ( 1 at a time on rower)
C. Once row is done, 2 teammates will share a total of 100 burpees (1 at a time)
D.Once burpees are done, 2 teammates will share a total of 100 kb swings (24kg/20kg)(1 at a time)
E. 4 teammates will perform a total of 200 pull ups ( 1 person a a time on the bar)
Please note that for all events, you can divide reps as you please amongst teammates but each member as to perform at least one rep of the exercise they were assigned .
Event # 2 For time( Same team requirements as in event#1)
Competition Category
A. Total of 200 knees to Elbows (1 person at a time)
B. Total of 200 wallballs (9kg/7kg) (1 person at a time)
C. Total of 200 Push-Jerks (75/55 lbs) ( 1 person at a time)
D. 200m Relay Farmers walk 24kg KB in each hand for male\16kg for female)
A. Total of 200 knees to Elbows (1 person at a time)
B. Total of 200 wallballs (9kg/7kg) (1 person at a time)
C. Total of 200 Push-Jerks (75/55 lbs) ( 1 person at a time)
D. 200m Relay Farmers walk 24kg KB in each hand for male\16kg for female)
I don't know about you, but when someone tells me "Oh, it's just for fun..." I can't help but feel competitive.
I mean who wants to be last? If you train hard and work towards bettering your 1RM dead lift, or a benchmark WOD time, you aren't training to come in last.
Sometimes I think people add on the " Just for fun" tag as an asterisk which really means "here's your built in excuse to not try as hard as you can, you don't really NEED to work hard...because it's just for fun ".
In case you haven't figured it out by now, I don't do "just for fun". Go hard or go home. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. There is no "I" in team. Those who risk nothing, get nothing.
One of my team mates, Nic (directly left of me) coined a great saying for our collective sentiment regarding this friendly competition: Just For Fun -All Out.
Pull out all the stops, strategize, plan the attack, and conquer. And we came pretty close.
We won the first event, but a few seconds, and came second in the second event but a about 12 seconds...so we came in a solid 2nd out of 6 competitive teams.
It was awesome! For more pictures about this event and future events check out CrossFit Montreal's site.
www.crossfitmontreal.ca
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Gym Rats and Other Creatures
Every gym has them, whether it be a garage gym or big box facility, there will always be special people that you share your workout space with. Some times you may wonder if you're a magnet for this type of gym dweller, but fear not: it's not you ... every place has at least one or like Noah's arc, two of each of these creatures:
The Pack Rat (aka: Pork Pensum Kilogramus): Collects various pieces of equipment (like to only power band in the gym), assorted dumbbell weights, mats, tubing, medicine balls, plyo boxes (a 24, 20, and a 16) to complete their workout. The interesting thing is they never use all the equipment they've collected, do not want to share with other gym goers, and monopolize said equipment for at least 90 minutes. The pack Rat is closely related to The Hog.
The Muskrat (aka: Rattus Perfumus): The creature seems to think that cologne or perfume should be used as BBQ marinade, and bathe themselves liberally in the stuff. Although the Muskrat is elusive and keeps very strange hours at the gym, in fact you may never see him or her, but you will most certainly smell them.
The Peacock (aka Corpus Speculum Admiratio): This bird likes to show off it's body, the facility could be a balmy 18°C , but they will rip off their shirts so that all other may admire their bodies in full, sweaty , glistening splendor. Usually the peacock will attract a the attention an equally beautiful mate, and they will regale each other with displays of flexing, grunting, and plumage fluffing while other gym goers watch with a mix of awe and incredulity ( OMG! Really? You're taking off your shirt ...again?!) . Barf.
The Hog (aka Porcus Culus): The Hog uses several pieces of equipment for intricate "circuits", marks it's territory by draping a towel or other personal effects on before mentioned equipment, and the carries on a lengthy conversation with The Magpie about the effectiveness of the ab-roller. As you approach a claimed piece of equipment (you've been watching this creature blab on for about 12 minutes and decided to go for it) and adjust the settings it grunts: "I'm using that...I got 6 more sets..". Nice.
The Skunk (aka Mephisto Perfumus): The Skunk is a relative to the Muskrat, but not as pleasant. This animal tends to wear previously used gym tops that were left to dry in a ball in the bottom of their gym bags. Impervious to it's own smell, The Skunk has no clue how bad it smells, and are usually "close talkers" or seem to pick the the perfect spot to workout...right next to you. Check Please!
The Sweat Hog (aka Porcus Sudare): The Sweat Hog creates large puddles of sweat in it's workout area, leaves sweaty butt prints on benches, head/hair imprints on mats, and various other outlined markings along it's workout journey. The Sweat Hog rarely cleans up after itself and never brings a towel. Be careful never to creep up behind, or startle the Sweat Hog: it may whip around in surprise spraying you with it's fluids. Double barf.
The Magpie (aka: Chattus Eternum): Whether on a cell phone or in conversation with another person, the Magpie is the only thing you hear squawking around the weight room. Also Dubbed "The Bullfrog" or "Human Trombone", the Magpie is loud and obnoxious, deafening, and oblivious to it's annoying habit. I SAID THE MAGPIE IS LOUD AND OB.....never mind, I'll tell you later....
The March Hare (aka Cuniculus Retardatum): It's late! it's late for a very important date. The March hare always seems to arrive late for class, usually with a full range of excuses (dropping kids off at the pool/day camp/soccer/school, needed to get gas, rescued a kitten from a tree..), and disrupt the class by setting up loudly, asking people to move around so they can "squeeze in", and are usually ask " ...So what are we doing today? I missed the first part..". Fail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
This is but a small sample of the animals you may meet along your path to fitness, there are so many other lovely creatures like the the Rhoidnocerus , the Tic, the Monkey, but I'll have to go over those on our next trip to the zoo...I mean gym.
If you spot any other fun animals, be sure to let me know !
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