Wow! What a topic! I just love seeing the celebrities on TV endorsing the different weight loss companies with their personal story of losing weight…again!

See, they are just showing you that they indeed are the victim of Yo-Yo dieting. You know, where the person diets and loses scale weight(lean body mass along with fat weight) and touts the latest diet craze, fad or weight loss company for their success. But then a year or 2  later they balloon back up to same weight or then some. By doing this over time, it is called Yo-Yo dieting, but the saddest point here is in the end the person has less lean body mass than when they originally started, thus burning less calories at rest due to a suppressed metabolism. This is not a lifestyle change! You want to hold on to, if not, increase your lean body mass!

And who wants to eat pre-packaged food and then microwave it killing the life-force in the food! NOT ME! I would much rather be normal and go to the grocery store and buy nutritious foods.

Here’s the deal: It’s all about using resistance training to increase your lean body mass(metabolism), using activity(cardio) to burn calories and oxidize body fat, and using nutrition to eat clean, and just fueling your body for it’s demands, not going to excess. For a much more in-depth explanation, go to www.flexfittraining.com and contact us.

Here at the training studio, all our clients have their body fat % tested with professional skinfold calipers and then their scale weight taken just to show us how many pounds are fat and how many are lean. Once a client loses body fat, transformation occurs. One pound of lean takes up less space on the human body than one pound of fat.  Losing 2 pounds of fat and gaining 2 pounds of lean means zero on the scale but inches off the waistline and hips, thus producing a smile!

Forget weight loss gimmicks, understand body transformation and if you want to take your fitness to the next level, contact us to work with a professional trainer: Duane Seybold – duane@flexfittraining.com – 919.995.4679

Personal Fitness Training Introduction Special Offer – Very limited! 5 spots available, Expires Wednesday 7/28/10
www.flexfittraining.com/specials

That headline above is exactly what I wanted to provide to my prospective clients when I started back up with my Personal Training career 3 years ago! The obstacle at the time was that I had zero clients and no place to train. As frank as I can say it, most of the personal training studios in Raleigh, stink!, as far as an independent trainer wanting to pay rent and develop a clientele. They are way too machine oriented and/or stingy about the potential success of another trainer. I actually owned a training studio back in the early 90’s and it was way too machine oriented but at that time functional training hadn’t caught on yet.

After 3 failed attempts to see where I might fit in as a new trainer on the block, I walked into the studio I now operate. It was a left over training studio from early 2000’s and was equipped but no functional training equipment. Realizing the functional training importance during my personal training certification process, I began to equip the studio out of my pocket with what I needed to train clients effectively. There was one bosu, one wobble board and one medicine ball. As I observed the trainers who were there, I soon realized they were ‘old school’ and my learning curve ended the second day!

Today, 3 years later, Flex-Fit Training Studio is fully functional with just about any training device you might see in a fitness training catalog and progressive training studio. I’ll put my studio up against any personal training studio here in Raleigh. And best of all, we have an entire outside training area for sports clients and advanced clients. Then if you are still looking for that something extra, our fitness boot camp classes should fill the ticket.

Wherever you want to go in your fitness quest, your solution is right here at Flex-Fit Training Studio. Try us out with one FREE session or two weeks FREE of our boot camp.

Well, it’s that time of year again, New Year’s resolutions! When it comes to fitness resolutions, we’re ‘gung ho’ with follow through desire, but the average Joe is stupid! Yeah, i said it, STUPID!

Why? If you look at the definition of stupidity, you understand that you have been there many times! By doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result(Stupidity), you and the rest of fitness America are in the same boat. Hey, this year I am going to start a running program 3 times a week. Hey, this year I’m going to take 3 spin classes a week. Hey, this year I’m going to workout with the weights 3 times a week. Hey, this year I’m going to switch to only whole grain foods. You really don’t have a clue, really!

No matter what your fitness resolution is, it all boils down to 2 things! Increase your lean body mass and decrease your fat pounds! There you have it! I’m done!……Not quite! Think about past and present New Year’s fitness resolutions and apply my simple rule, increase lean body mass and decrease fat pounds. It all comes back to my simple rule, every time.

You want to get into your ’skinny’ jeans. So increase lean body mass and decrease fat pounds!
You want to lose weight and have a smaller waistline. So increase your lean body mass and decrease fat pounds!
You want better sex with your partner. So increase lean body mass and decrease fat pounds!
You want to be in better shape for your kids. So increase your lean body mass and decrease fat pounds!

You see it’s all about, increasing your lean body mass and decreasing fat pounds, but how do I accomplish that and not be STUPID, again! Simple, pay homage equally to the three areas of health & fitness that will deliver my simple rule and body transformation.

First, understand that cardio training is for burning calories and oxidizing body-fat and that true Interval Training makes that happen faster.
Second, realize that resistance training is the only thing that will increase lean body mass and at the cellular level, the only thing that will create more mitochondria(the powerhouse of every cell). The more mitochondria you have, the more lean body mass you will have and a better revved metabolism.
Third, understanding nutrition as fuel for your workouts both cardio and anaerobic, and eating clean! If you owned a thoroughbred horse, would you feed it coffee, cigarettes and donuts? Lack LaLanne said it best, “If man made it, don’t eat it”.

If you are serious about your fitness goals, live in Raleigh or out of state, contact Duane Seybold at duane@flexfittraining.com for your solution for 2010! I work with one-on-one clients in a studio setting and also work with out of area, phone clients.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Flex-Fit Training!

In recent weeks I have had an opportunity from 3 separate sources to analyze the typical gym(health club) member’s workout verses my clients functional workouts. A quick general comparison is, the gym clients’ workouts are from the 80’s and my studio personal training workouts are 2010!

I recently trained 2 clients who are members of a local gym, who were unhappy with their workouts and wanted to take a step forward and work with a professional trainer to make their gym time more effective and not spin wheels. The third situation was a gym member who works out 5-6 times a week, wanted to see what goes on here at my studio, and came in to watch me train 3 clients in 90 minutes.

My first reaction to the 2 gym members seeking my services was, ‘why don’t you just work with one of the gym trainers?’. Both reactions were that the gym trainers came across unprofessional, only after money and all they really were doing is taking the client through a machine workout like a fitness instructor. The separate (third case) gym member was using the machine circuit and using the individual machines for whichever body parts she was working that day.  All were not using their bodies in efficient manner to ultimately produce body transformation results.

After going to their gym to inspect what they had so I could transition my new clients back there, I was dumbfounded to see mega cardio pieces, mega machines, mega free weights, but very little functional training tools. They had 1 bosu, 3 stability balls, 1 medicine ball rack(5 balls) with max weight of 10#. That was it! Now I know their problem! After working with my 2 new clients for 6 sessions and showing them functional exercises they could replicate back at the gym, both were really sore using new muscles that the machines couldn’t hit. They loved their new functional workout program plan and planned on returning for future guidance.

My third gym member’s situation unfolded with this statement, “I have never seen any of those exercises before!” I just went through 90 minutes of training with 3 advanced clients in functional muscular endurance workouts using kettle bells, bosus, medicine balls, body weight exercises, cable exercises, unstable surface training exercises, combination exercises(ex. squat,curl,press), agility drills, TRX suspension system exercises, band work, body bar exercises, slams, jumps, etc. And she never saw any of those exercises!

From my perspective, Flex-Fit Training clients get great functional workouts while the others(gym members) spend wasteful time to get marginal results. If you want to get into the best shape of your life and are serious and motivated, contact Duane Seybold at duane@flexfittraining.com. He is available for a FREE 45 minute consultation to assess your needs and offer a finite game plan.

All athletes strive to be a little stronger, a little faster, knowing that this edge in ability leads them ever closer to realizing their ultimate potential.

The realization of highly held goals is a product of the development of natural ability and the learned skills or technique of a sport. The typical athlete must train for many years to refine technique and to develop the strength and speed required to reach his or her individual potential.

Plyometrics is exercise designed to enhance the athlete’s ability to blend speed and strength training. It is, in effect, ‘icing on the cake’. When sound training principles are used, plyometrics offers the mechanism by which an athlete can start quicker, change direction more rapidly, accelerate faster, and improve overall speed. Plyometrics is never intended to be ‘the only answer’ in athletic training. Rather, plyometric training should be a progressive continuum.

In the hands of the knowledgeable  Trainer and athlete, plyometrics can produce movements that are quick, explosive, and fast-reacting. It can truly be a piece of the elite performance puzzle.

Flex-Fit Training offers sports performance programs for the young athlete(10-18 yrs. old) In season and off season programs available for all sports.

FAIL in the sense that they don’t get their new client, or possibly existing clients, measurable RESULTS! I’ve seen it for years. You’ve heard the old adage, ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. Well these amateur trainers, mainly in the gym setting or fresh off getting their certification and no client training experience, are basically ‘glorified’ instructors, a.k.a., followers.

What they or the training organization over them miss, is they do not spend enough time up front with a new client! Their direct path is to a contract and first workout. This is how most trainers FAIL with their new client. They skip over the most important step with their new client!

The solution is simple, do the right and ethical thing with your new client, conduct an extensive initial consultation and perform thorough fitness testing up front. Then go to the first workout. How can you know where you are going with a client if you don’t know where they have been? Extensive fitness testing shows you, the trainer, where they have been.

My goal with fitness testing is to uncover weaknesses and imbalances so I can create the most optimal strategy for potential success. The client’s commitment is better when you take the time to look beneath fitness and investigate function. By adopting testing methods, I accelerate the relationship with my new client and find and fix weaknesses while the rest simply focus on strengths.

Most client’s main goal is weight loss. I call it scale weight loss. My goal then is to have the new client understand the difference between scale weight loss and body fat % loss. To further this and help establish a baseline, the client’s body fat needs to be checked with a reputable instrument. This will be the topic of my next blog. Until then….Stay Strong!