Meridian Gyms | Best in the Business

Meridian Gyms | Best in the Business

This is Brett Denton of Boise Jim’s in Meridian Gyms Cavell fitness and nutrition today. We’re going to look at a few questions that come up a lot in health and fitness industry. The first question is about free weights versus body weight versus machines. You know what should you be using. Many people don’t understand the difference between all the different types of training methodologies and tools. Then there are countless methodologies and training tools out there these days that it can be very confusing. You get everything from your zoom the training to your P 90 x to your Oren’s theory type gyms to your strict weight training to your curves fitness you know and on and on and on and on and what people don’t understand is each one of them has a specific purpose or end benefit. Now in the long run they’re all designed to help you be more fit and healthy but more fit is very specific to the type of event that you’re doing. In other words if I was to get you in shape or fit enough to play soccer that’s going to be different than if we’re going to get you in shape enough or fit enough to be a Olympic weightlifter. Right those are two different types of fitness. So fitness is specific to the type of sport or the specific skill that you want to get good at or be fit in. You know CrossFit is another example of this. People who do crossfit are very physically fit to be able to do cross fit types of events. Meridian Gyms Right. High rep movements endurance type movements that type of thing. But if you put a CrossFit athlete in like a 50 k all of a sudden they’re no longer that fit anymore. Right now when they get through it. Yeah they’ll probably be able to get through it but they’re not going to win the race and they’re not going to be as fit as the person who trained specifically for that race. And so when it comes to you know what’s the difference really like free weights and machines. Well pretty easy. A machine is a piece of equipment that is stationary and it controls your range of motion. And this really depends on the machine. There’s some free motion type machines out there now that have a pulley and cable systems and they don’t control your range of motion as much as some of the older machines or some of the machines like your typical hack press squat or like your chest press type machines but nevertheless they are a machine so they have polies they have a weight stack or you can put weights on them but they control the range of motion and they’re usually a little bit more safe for the novice lifter. And so if you’re a novice lifter a good idea would be to start with machines and start to gain your strength and your fitness that way. Free weights or things like dumbbells kettlebells barbells things that aren’t attached to machine and things that don’t move without really without you moving them. Meridian Gyms So they’re you know don’t have any type of pre described or predestined movement pattern.[00:03:08] And so this is leaves room for error for people to get injured more easily because they may not be using the movement correctly and they’re adding weight to a movement that is not being done correctly but free weights are very good for building stabilization in the body. They’re very good for working on very functional type of movements. You know so when you go and pick up your grocery bag that doesn’t revolve around you picking it up with a machine. Right. You need to go and you need to pick up your groceries without getting hurt. And those things aren’t attached to anything. And so this is very similar to going and picking up a pair of dumbbells and carrying him around which is known as the farmers carry. And so when it comes to real life application many times free weights or the movements that are used with free weights transfer better over into real life or athletic events. Meridian Gyms So it kind of depends on what your goal is which one is better because if your goal is strictly you know muscle gaining or just increasing your strength or even fat loss sometimes weight machines or free weights either of them work right there isn’t necessarily one that’s better than the other as long as your workout program is written in the correct way. So now when you compare weightlifting with like your dance classes let’s say you’re Zuba or something similar to that. Now you’re talking about a whole different can of worms and you’re really comparing apples to oranges instead of oranges to oranges because resistance training is going to help you build strength lean mass. And it’s also going to help you improve the body composition of your body.

[00:04:49] Whereas with like a dancing type of a training session that’s going to help you dance better it’s going to burn some calories. So it might change your body composition a little bit. But if you’re already fairly conditioned right if you’re fairly conditioned person and having a dance class isn’t going to do much for you other than help you dance better and possibly burn a few extra calories. With that said there are many things that you can do out there to burn a few extra calories. Other than that just the dance. So if you want to do dance just because you like it great. But it’s not really a fair comparison to compare a dance with a resistance training type of workout. They’re not. They’re not the same thing. And that is the same when it comes to any type of cardio training. You know if you’re going to jump on a treadmill that’s not the same as going and lifting weights. If you’re going to do a cycle class that’s not the same as going and lifting weights. Meridian Gyms Right. Different training modalities and they’re all good. You just have to know what your goal is and what you’re trying to accomplish. And if you know that then it’s a lot easier to determine how much of each type of training you should do. And so when you’re looking at training modalities the very first thing is you got to know what your objective is. Once you know what your objective is it’s a good idea to talk to a personal trainer or somebody who knows what they’re doing so you can decide what types of training you need to have in your program. Meridian Gyms And that’s the next question that we get a lot is you know what are the main benefits of working with a personal trainer. And there’s actually quite a few some that you may not know about and some that you will know about. And so when you’re working with one of our trainers at one of our Boise gyms or even one of our Meridien gyms you’re going to get one on one or you’re going to get group attention to help you make sure you’re doing things correctly and this is a huge part of personal training and why it’s important to hire a coach. If you’re going to hire a personal trainer you’ve got to make sure that personal trainer is going to pay excruciating detail to the form that you’re using and your technique when it comes to your lifting where most people get hurt and lifting is by poor technique. Right. And so they’ll do a deadlift and they’ll pick it up without having a tight core although do a squat and their knees are buckling in or they’ll do a bench press and their elbows are flaring out on their shoulder blades aren’t together. You know these are things that you want to have a good personal trainer to help you so that you can ensure that you get strong while staying safe. You know so it’s a risk to reward thing. It’s risky to go and start training on your own because you don’t have the expertise or the knowledge on how to lift correctly. Meridian Gyms So if you hire a personal trainer or a coach there are going to be able to help coach you through that and understand and help you understand how to lift correctly to make sure that you can get the max benefit out of your workout without injuring yourself. Meridian Gyms So that’s number one. Number one you get attention you understand how to do things correctly. Number two hiring a personal trainer helps you stay accountable. Right it’s hard to stay accountable to yourself and go to the gym and do the hard things. You know there’s many people out there who go to the gym but they don’t really do the work out that they should be doing. In other words they don’t do a workout. That’s pushing them and helping them get better and helping them improve. They just go to the gym and they do what they want to do instead of doing the things that are hard which is what a personal trainer will force you to do when somebody else is writing the program for you. And when somebody else is taking you through that program you’re going to do things that you need to do. Not just things that you like to do. And it’s usually those things that you need to do that are the most important for you to ensure that you’re getting results. Stephanie staying healthy and staying injury free. Meridian Gyms And the accountability piece of it is huge. You know for the people who don’t already go to the gym on their own or who won’t work out on their own having to pay a personal trainer and show up day after day after day is often enough for you to get momentum and start seeing success. And once you start seeing success without accountability and now you start to get into a habit and routine. [00:08:43] And so it’s important to have that accountability piece as part of your workout plan.

Another reason you want to hire personal trainers because you’ve got to work out harder. You know there’s I don’t know how long ago but there was a study done and it showed that people who worked out around other people or with somebody watching them or with a group worked out almost twice as hard as somebody who worked out on their own. And so just by having a personal trainer there with you watching you cheer you on coaching you you’re going to work out harder. And when you work out harder you’re going to get a more efficient and effective workout. And by doing that you’re going to get better results. Right. So ultimately all of this comes down to of course getting better results. And so these three reasons alone are enough to hire a personal trainer. Another question that we get is you know is walking or running better for fat loss. And really this is kind of a tough question to answer because you know they’re both good and it really depends on how you do them. And so you know as you’ll find out most of the questions that we answer the answer is It depends because it depends on what your objective is it depends on what you can actually do depends on you know how often you’re going to do it. A lot of these things but as a general rule the more intense an activity the shorter amount of time you have to do it. Meridian Gyms So in other words if I’m just going to walk I have to walk for a lot longer time than if I’m going to jog to walk for a lot longer time than I’m going to run. I have to jog a lot longer time than I have that I would have to sprint. All right. So sprinting as hard as you can and then resting and sprinting and resting is one of the fastest ways in most efficient ways to burn fat. But very few people are going to go out there and do this consistently enough to make sure that they’re getting results. And so if you’re one of those people then you need to pick something that you’re going to be more consistent with. And if this is jogging or running or walking great. So really what it comes down to is what are you willing to do. Right. What are you willing to do to burn fat. The most efficient and effective in the shortest amount of time is the most difficult. And that would be sprint intervals. So if you’re going to do sprint intervals great if you do them consistently that’s what you need to go with if you’re not. They need to pick either running jogging or walking. Now with that being said highly recommend that you walk as much as you possibly can throughout the day no matter what you’re doing for your physical activity. Walking is a great activity for you to do for restorative reasons. So you’re going to keep the blood flowing through the body. This is going to help deliver the nutrients where they need to be delivered. It’s going to help you stay loose in Mobile. So you don’t get stiff. It’s going to ensure that your body is not shutting down and slowing down metabolism.  You know throughout the day if you just sit at a desk all day or if you just stand around all day without really activating anything like you could do through walking or picking things up then your metabolism starts to slow down and that slow down metabolism has all kinds of effects. Of course one of those is increased weight gain on insulin resistance. Some of these types of things that ultimately end up in poor health. So it’s highly recommended that you do both running and walking. Now if you are you know significantly overweight running right off the bat is a terrible idea. And so you need to start out with walking until you get down to within about 10 to 15 pounds of your ideal weight. Right. Once you’re in that range about 10 to 15 pounds with an ideal weight. Then make sure you’re strong enough to run as the next best step. And then after that and you can start running. Meridian Gyms The next question would get a lot is how long to rest between workouts. And again this all depends really depends on your goals and what you’re trying to achieve. And it also depends on the type of training that you’re doing and what that training is trying to elicit.  So if you were trying to get really strong and you’ve been training for a long time you’re going to need a lot longer rest in between workouts than if you’re just starting out as general people who are just starting out can work out more frequently and it’s actually better for them to work out more frequently than if they’re you know a more mature athlete or somebody who’s been training for a long time. The reason being is because the younger athletes or the person who doesn’t have as much training experience can benefit from repeated reps to really train the neuro muscular system

to understand how to move correctly how to move the weights correctly how to move their body Propertius out to of late all that type of stuff. Whereas the more mature athlete they have already got a lot of those initial gains out of the way. And so now that their body is stronger and more efficient it takes them longer to recover from a heavy workout than somebody who is lifting lighter weights maybe even body weight to recover from their workout. As a general rule at our Boise gyms and our meridian gyms recommend one day of rest at least in between training sessions when you’re starting out. And then you know as you get more into it your body gets more conditioned you can bump it up from there. And then as your workouts get harder we recommend that you bump it back down. And then the next question is you know what’s the best guide out there there’s thousands upon thousands of diet and the unsexy answer to this is don’t die. Right. There is no good diet out there. But when you look at the real definition of the term diet it simply means what you eat. Right. So it’s just a way of eating. And so really what you want to look at is what can you follow long term what is maintainable for you and what is going to ensure that you are weighing the weight that you should weigh. [00:14:25] In other words how do you get down to your ideal weight and how can you maintain it. And that’s what you want to look at. And so typically for almost everybody on the face of the earth this means you’re going to eat whole foods. So as unprocessed as possible you’re can eat a ton of vegetables you can eat some fruits and eat some lean protein and eat a small amount of fat. If you just stick with that you don’t have to diet you just start eating healthy foods then you can start losing weight. You’re going to start being able to maintain the weight your energy is going to pick up. Your mood is going to pick up. So there is some answers to some of the questions that we get a lot and our Boise gyms and our meridian gyms if you have any other questions you can visit us at.