Fitness News & Views
A Publication of Graham Fitness

May 15, 2010 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20
Last Call for Spring/Summer Boot Camp

We still have a few more openings for the seven week Spring/Summer 2010 Boot Camp, but this will be your last notice. It will be a Level 4 Boot Camp, but we will have 2 groups based on individual skill and fitness levels. This boot camp is not for beginners, but if you are in decent shape, you will be able to participate without much difficulty.


Here are the details:

Begins:              Saturday, May 22
Ends:                 Saturday, July 3
Time:                 Approximately one hour
Where:              Various locations in Greater Columbia
What to bring:   A workout mat, water, lots of energy
Cost:                  $99 for Rookies (first-timers)
                           $49 for Veterans of any prior boot camp


If you are interested, let me know so I can reserve a place for you and make sure you get the necessary info for the first boot camp.


Quiz Time
How Smart Are You?


Answer the following:

A. How often should you vary your workouts?
B. How often should you weigh yourself for best results?
C. What is the fattest city in the U.S.? The fittest?
D. What is the most popular fruit in the world?
E. What fruit was considered poisonous for over 400 years?
F. If you must go on a diet, what’s the best one to use?
G. When is the best time to stretch?
H. How long should stretching take?

Read on for all the answers. Let me hear from you by email. Your comments are always read and appreciated.

      If you want to get the most out of every strength workout, you should stick to the basics. It′s easy to get sidetracked by the latest gimmicks, but nothing beats the tried and true exercises for maximum benefits in the least amount of time. In my opinion, a full body workout two or three times a week cannot be beat for effectiveness and efficiency.
      A good full body workout will work all of the major muscle groups – the legs, including the quads and hamstrings; the core which encompasses the abs, obliques, and erector spinae in the lower back; the pectorals in the chest; the lats in the upper back; the arms, including the biceps and the triceps; and the shoulders. A well-designed workout consisting of 10 to 12 different exercises will get the job done. If you perform three sets of each exercise, with a 30 to 60 second rest between each set, your total time in the gym will be about an hour including warm up and cool down time.
      Vary your exercises for each muscle group at least every six weeks. Don′t allow yourself to do the same exercises over and over just because they′re comfortable or easy. Challenge yourself.

      Obviously, if you are trying to lose weight, it is important to weigh yourself periodically. The question is: how often. You would expect there to be some consensus on this among trainers, but that is definitely not the case. I have read reputable trainers who have advocated everything from weighing yourself everyday to never stepping on the scales. And there are good arguments for both extremes.
      Those who advise frequent weigh-ins say that by detecting weight gains early, it is easier to correct them. The never weigh-in folks say the scale is the worst predictor of success. For them, the best ways to assess progress are to see how your clothes are fitting and look at yourself in the mirror.
      Then of course, there are the centrists who advocate weekly weight checks. They draw a little from both extremes. Yes, they say, it is important to know your weight so you can make corrections before you′ve piled on the pounds, but allowing the scales to run your life and affect your moods is not good, because other indicators are indeed more essential to good looks and good health.
      I myself have held pretty much every conceivable position, but at this stage in my training, I believe every client is a little different. For some, frequent weigh-ins are motivating. For others, they are devastating. However, I do suggest that most of my clients check their weight with me about once a week so we can make necessary adjustments as needed.

      Recently, I saw an article on the SparkPeople website entitled ″Easy Ways to Eat 5 Fruits & Veggies Each Day.″ It′s a little long to reproduce in its entirety, but here are a few of the suggestions that I especially like and plan to use myself:
           • Add fruit to cereal, oatmeal, waffles or pancakes at breakfast.
           • Add fresh fruit to plain yogurt for a healthy snack or dessert.
           • Snack on snap peas, raisins, or carrots.
           • Drink a glass of fruit juice or vegetable juice once a day.
           • Add tossed vegetable salads to your meals. (Go light on the dressings.)
           • When cooking vegetables, prepare 2 or 3 times more than you will need and
            store the extra for tomorrow.
           • Add extra beans and vegetables to canned soups.
           • Load up your pizza with vegetables and pineapple instead of fatty meats.
           • Eat berries or melons for naturally sweet desserts.
           • Add fruit to your main meal dishes: Dried cranberries in salads and brown
             rice, spiced apples with pork, pineapple slices with fish or ham, and orange
             slices with chicken.

      Men′s Health magazine has once again published its list of the 100 Fattest Cities in the United States. Actually, that′s not exactly accurate because the cities at the bottom of the list actually are the fittest cities. To make it simpler, they have graded 100 cities and given them an F, D, C, B, or A, including pluses and minuses.
      The fattest eight cities all received a grade of F. They are in order from bottom to top: Baltimore; San Antonio; Kansas City; Memphis; Dallas; El Paso; Charleston, WV; and Corpus Christi the fattest of them all. It′s interesting to note that four of these eight are in Texas. Also you might notice that Kansas City and Memphis are both famous for their barbecue.
      The healthiest cities, the ones with a grade of A, are: Aurora, CO; Denver; Cincinnati; Portland, OR; Albuquerque; Austin; Seattle; Washington, DC; and San Francisco and Burlington, VT, tied with top honors.
      For the record, Columbia, SC, came in at number 38 with a C- grade.

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      Here′s a trivia question for you: What is the most popular fruit? The answer may surprise you. Tomatoes! Technically, a tomato is a fruit, although we usually think of it as a vegetable. Fruits contain seeds. Vegetables don′t. More than 60 million tons of tomatoes are produced each year compared to 44 million tons of bananas and 36 million tons of apples.
      Tomatoes are rich in vitamins A and C and high in fiber and lycopene, a carotenoid that may prevent certain cancers, but for over 400 years up until Colonial times, they were considered poisonous.
      Legend has it that the reason for this was the lead from pewter plates leached into the tomatoes and caused sickness and death over time. That′s probably not true. More likely, it′s the tomato′s resemblance to a now rare, but once common poisonous plant called the Deadly Nightshade. What′s more, all other parts of the tomato except the fruit itself are toxic.

      If you are one of my past or present clients or a regular reader of this newsletter, you know that I don′t subscribe to dieting as a means to weight loss. Dieting implies depriving yourself for a period of time until you lose a preset amount of weight. If you continue to deprive yourself long enough, you will lose weight, but once the weight is gone, what do you do then? Go back to your old eating habits? If so, you′ll be back up to your pre-diet weight before you′ve had time to wear all your new clothes.
      As I have repeated many times, the only way to lose weight safely and permanently is to lose it slowly by exercising and developing good eating habits which you can continue the rest of your life.
      But before I get side-tracked, what I would like to do in this article is to list some of the diets I have run across in my years as a personal trainer with a comment here and there. I don′t advocate any of these, although you can shed pounds with any of them. Problem is, you can′t keep the excess weight off with any of them. The five-year success rate with all of these diets is less than five percent. So here′s the list. How many have you tried?
                Atkins Diet – You′ve probably tried this one. It was huge about 5 or 6 years ago. Not so much now. Unfortunately, those who tried it are huge again.
                Beverly Hills Diet – Lots and lots of fruit. Lots and lots of gas and diarrhea.
                Blood Type Diet – You eat certain specified foods according to your blood type. Different family members with different blood types all eat a different set of foods. Oh yeah, this should work well.
                Cabbage Soup Diet – Yummy.
                Cookie Diet – You eat a special cookie for breakfast and another for lunch and then eat a regular dinner. Why not just fast two meals a day?
                Grapefruit Diet – This is also called the Hollywood Diet, so that should tell you right there how realistic it is.
                Jenny Craig – We might as well lump Nutri-Systems in with this one. You buy their food, eat it, and lose weight. But what happens when you go out to eat, visit a friend′s house or travel? Or when the money runs out? These meals aren′t cheap.
                Slim Fast Diet – This is sort of like the Cookie Diet. You drink a Slim Fast for breakfast and lunch and eat a regular dinner. How long can you keep this up?
                Special K Diet – Special K for breakfast and lunch and a regular dinner. Can you spot a trend here? Imagine facing a bowl of Special K 14 times a week.
                Weight Watchers – This is the best of the diets in my opinion. It′s based on eating healthy foods sensibly, but you better be prepared for some serious point counting.
                This list is not exhaustive by any means. There are a few hundred more like the Zone Diet, the Suzanne Somers Diet, the Scarsdale Diet, the Vinegar Diet, and my personal favorite, the Cotton Ball Diet, which is exactly what it sounds like. After all, those little fluffy balls of cotton are low in calories and they do tend to fill you up.

      Speaking of diets, two cannibals are sitting around the fire. One says, ″I don′t like my mother-in-law.″

″That′s all right,″ says the other, ″just eat your potatoes.″

      Flexibility in the joints is an important but often overlooked part of overall fitness. Stretching is the best way to maintain joint flexibility. You should be stretching after every workout for 5 to 10 minutes. A series of 8 to 12 stretches held for 10 to 15 seconds each is sufficient. Just make sure the routine you use covers all the major joints – shoulders, hips, knees – and all the larger muscles – hamstrings, quads, adductors, and calves.
      In case you are not convinced, here is a partial list of the benefits of stretching:
                • Reduced muscle tension
                • Increased energy levels due to increased blood circulation
                • Increased range of motion in the joints
                • Decreased muscle soreness
                • Decreased risk of injury
Remember, it′s not a good idea to stretch cold muscles. Generally, I recommend stretching as part of your cool down after working out. Stretching can cause injuries if your muscles are cold. It′s sort of like trying to bend a piece of chewing gum you′ve kept in the refrigerator.

Graham Fitness
Tim Graham
ACE Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Website: www.grahamfitness.com
Email: tim@grahamfitness.com
Phone: 803-447-8557

Harbison Recreation Center
106 Hillpine Road
Columbia, SC 29212
Phone: 781-2281

The Harbison Rec Center offers more facilities for less money than anywhere else in town These are just some of the features: a new weight room with all new machines, free weights, treadmills, ellipticals, and stationary bikes; a 25 meter junior Olympic size indoor heated swimming pool; sauna; whirlpool; racquet ball and tennis courts; a basketball gym; and miles of traffic-free trails for walking or jogging. There are classes for seniors as well as summer camp and after school programs for kids. Also newly remodeled locker rooms and an all-purpose room for large gatherings. All for only $315 a year for singles or $600 a year for families.










Wolf′s Fitness Center
5432 August Road
Lexington, SC 29072
Phone: 356-6400

Wolf′s is a total fitness facility offering some great amenities. There′s a huge recently expanded weight room featuring free weights and machines. There is a cardio area with treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, stair steppers, and the cardio theater. Other amenities include an indoor walking/running track, sauna, child care facilities with an attendant, tanning beds, showers, locker rooms, and sports supplements. Prices are very reasonable and there are no enrollment fees ever. Wolf′s also offers a full slate of fitness classes including kickboxing and pilates, as well as all new spinning classes .
Check out their website, www.wolfsfitness.com.