by John | Jul 7, 2015 | Best Practices, Engage Your Students, Latest News
Not sure how I feel about this new show shot in an Indoor Cycling studio in LA. I've had a few regulars mention it to me at the club. One told me that she's excited to learn more about the sex and drama filled life I lead as an Instructor 🙂
Hollywood Cycle episode #1 is tonight on E! Entertainment Television
You may have already seen the trailer
https://youtu.be/e6h3rQlZUzI
Now you can also get some advice on what not to do in a cycling class >
“Hollywood Cycle” stars Nick Hounslow, Nichelle Hines and Aaron Hines give the down-low on what to avoid during their intense spinning sessions. Listen in!
There's more here in these interviews from USA Today.
by Sally Edwards | Jul 6, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Master Instructor Blog, Zone based Heart Rate Training
The USA Women won the World Cup finals in soccer yesterday!
The US team coaches are using heart rate training, aka Heart Zones Training, extensively in their preparation for what lead to this victory.
I wanted to share with you an article released yesterday about how that training is accomplished using training load points and player position specificity – and comments that I made in that regard in the article. You can read it here.
While members of the U.S. team will no doubt play their hearts out during the Women's World Cup final against Japan, a coach on the sideline will be receiving real-time data about their actual hearts.
Credit forward-thinking coaches who embraced sport science to improve performance: Each U.S. player wears a heart rate monitor — not unlike one you'd find at your local sporting goods store — when she trains and plays games.
But what makes these special is where the information goes and how it's used.
Whereas a commercial monitor (or “wearable”) is designed for information to go to a wrist unit, an iPhone or iPad, and be used by the individual, for the U.S. women, there is a receiver that simultaneously collects the heart rates of 28 athletes to be analyzed by a coach.
[That “receiver” is the same as what's used to connect participants to the Display Training systems in cycling studios – John]Â
“What evolved [with the technology] was the ability for coaches to not only record the data, but be able to see it live,” says Josh Simonsen, a training specialist for Polar, the company that supplies the U.S. team with its heart rate system.
The data shows how hard a player is working, and can help a fitness coach determine everything from individualized training programs to deciding how much rest a player needs after a tough game. “If you take the women's national team, they're all fit. But it comes down to what type of fitness each player has,” Simonsen says.
What type of position an athlete plays also makes a difference, explains Sally Edwards, a heart rate expert and founder and CEO of Heart Zones, a fitness technology company. “In team sports, each player's position has unique physiological requirements, so the forward on a soccer team has to have different training than a defender,” says Edwards. “Some positions might need quick acceleration. Others might need endurance late in the game.”
With the use of sensor technology, a training program can be tailored to each player to make the fit even fitter.
If you'd like to learn more about this technology and how it could improve your team's performance, Use this contact form to request more information.
Sally
Sally Edwards, Founder and Head Heart
Heart Zones, Inc.
by Joan Kent | Jun 15, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
The current nutrition buzz is that sugar’s bad news. It is.
The fact that admitting this is considered a new direction by nutritionists, dietitians and the public shows how off-base the nutrition field was for such a long time. It even makes the nutrition field appear ridiculous.
At least, to me. I’ve been blasting sugar for 20+ years, at times getting blasted back for doing it.
But it’s worth tracking the events, so we can blame the culprits who deserve it….
Once Upon a Time, Sugar Was Bad
In science journals in the 1970s, sugar’s negative health effects were getting lots of attention. Films were available — some very good. A popular book was written on problems of sugar consumption: Sugar Blues, by William Dufty.
Interestingly, Sugar Blues was written before much (if anything) was known about the brain chemicals triggered by sugar. And way before any connection was made between sugar and appetite, cravings, health, moods, and more.
It wasn’t till 1975 that endorphin (beta-endorphin) was “discovered.” So the 1974 book was a little ahead of its time. And yet it was timely because scientists were researching sugar.
That wasn’t good news for the sugar industry. And the sugar industry is a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C.
If you don’t think food industry lobbyists influence the government, an eye-opening book is Food Politics by Marion Nestle. She describes the laborious, frustrating process of developing the original Food Guide Pyramid.[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Nestle was working for the USDA and visited daily by beef and dairy industry reps. Their complaints — and the pressure they applied — were significant factors in the Food Guide Pyramid, released in 1991.
Those complaints made the original Pyramid vague and confusing for consumers in several ways. Years later, it had to be revised for clarification. (That’s a side issue, but stay with me.)
The take-home point is that the food industries are the real constituents of the USDA. We, the consumers, are not. Our health is of far less concern to that government agency than placating its constituents.
Which brings us back to sugar in the late 1970s.
The sugar industry didn’t care for the scientific emphasis on the health problems linked with sugar and began working its evil.
Sugar Devil Spins Fat As the Enemy
By 1984, fats had been designated the new Dietary Demon.
From that point until the late 1990s — and beyond — we suffered through the low-fat craze. And a craze it was, although it was disguised as the Right Way To Eat.
Some people still believe it! They even cite Ancel Keys, whose work has since been debunked by several sources.
During that time, several things happened — none good, except for the sugar industry.
First, scientists turned away from sugar and began looking at fats.
They investigated health problems linked with high-fat diets, saturated fats, red meats, cheeses, and other “bad fats.” New scientific findings emerged and found their way into mainstream media.
In 1995, an entire supplement of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) published the papers from a conference on dietary sugar.
The presenters were hand-selected from researchers whose names I immediately recognized. They consistently found that sugar had no negative consequences on health, weight, or even cavities.
Do I have to tell you that funding for these scientists come from makers of sugary food products?
Here’s the take-away: After the conference, all companies attending (General Mills, Kraft, and other big sugar-users you know) could “legitimately” claim that their reps had attended a scientific conference — where it was conclusively shown that sugar is not bad for any reason whatsoever.
Also during the low-fat craze, the food industry developed low-fat and nonfat versions of their products. Conveniently for the sugar industry — and not coincidentally — the products used sugar to replace the flavor lost when fat was removed.
One example? Cream cheese. The full-fat product contains no sugar, but the nonfat version did and does. A line of low-fat frozen foods — ironically named Healthy Choice — added sugar to every product, including soup. Other companies followed.
Product developers even created artificial fats. Remember Olean and Olestra? (How about the side effects, such as anal leakage? Perhaps that’s a story for a different post.)
With all of these low- and nonfat foods available, dietary fat fell far below the original recommendation of 30%.
That 30% had been endorsed by the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society — until the low-fat craze hit us.
My clinical observation was that protein intake fell, too, especially among women. Protein contains fat — sometimes a lot — so women who were concerned with weight loss just let that go. They started eating carbs, and lots of them.[/wlm_private]
Part 2 is about how we became a nation of sugar junkies and what happened when fitness professionals finally saw the light.
by John | Jun 5, 2015 | Engage Your Students, KEEPING IT FUN, Music, Spotify
Now that it's summer, I like to transition from serious > to fun classes. Not sure exactly why… maybe because when it's cold and dark in the morning, I tend to think if we can't be outdoors we might as well be training with focus.
Summer, on the other hand, causes me to lighten up and try to be more entertaining and fun. Here's a few tracks that I'll be using in the coming weeks.[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']
Not sure where I found this but I remember I Shazamed it the instant I heard it. There's a nice 30 second finish you might use as a final sprint.
I know I heard T-Shirt Weather when I was at American Eagle Outfitters last week.
I'm going to set the mood for my next class with this fun remix – I can't help smiling listening to it 🙂 Doesn't this sound free and easy? You might also use it as an aerobic transition between a pair of intervals.
Here's the MP3 to download Right Click > Save As.[/wlm_private]
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
by Joan Kent | Jun 1, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness
Recently, a client who very seldom gets sick and who is typically quite vigilant about her nutrition told me she got a respiratory infection. This brief post describes what she learned from not sticking with her nutrition guidelines and is meant to be a caution for anyone who finds value in it.
Apparently, while the client was feeling quite under the weather, she simply stopped paying attention to her usual, healthful diet. One evening, after a day of less attentive eating — nothing actually junky — she noticed that she felt, in her words, “absolutely terrible.” She assumed that her health had taken a turn for the worse, until she reflected on how her “food day” had gone.
Throughout that day, she had eaten almost no protein and lots of starchy carbs. It was then that she remembered how insulin-triggering carbs affect inflammation: they trigger series 2 prostaglandins.
What Are Prostaglandins?
As outlined in a previous post, prostaglandins are short-lived, hormone-like chemicals. They’re released by cells and travel through the interstitial fluid to neighboring target cells. Prostaglandins regulate many cellular functions and come in 3 types. All types are derived from foods (specific fatty acids), and depend on enzymes for their formation.
What Insulin Does
Insulin changes the enzymes that act on the fats we eat. When we eat high quantities of insulin-triggering foods (usually carbs) — or when we eat insulin-triggering carbs by themselves — the enzymes shift in the direction that brings on series 2 prostaglandin formation.
Type 2 prostaglandins promote pain and inflammation, while types 1 and 3 work in the opposite direction and can reduce both pain and inflammation.
We Can Fix Things With Food
Fortunately, the client was pro-active enough to go back to her usual diet of mostly vegetables, along with protein and moderate quantities of complex carbs and healthful fats. She started noticing that she felt better within several hours.
This advice could fit right in with the “No Days Off” message from several months ago. Mainly, I hope it serves as a helpful message for your students, if they ever get sick.
by Joan Kent | May 26, 2015 | Engage Your Students, Health and Wellness, Master Instructor Blog
As a nutritionist, I find that my food is under scrutiny all the time. Recently, I attended a weeklong seminar that had nothing to do with nutrition, but my food was still scrutinized.
Every morning started with a different fitness activity. Afterward, the instructor gave us breakfast guidelines, recommending that we eat just fruit “because it’s easy to digest.”
I know better than to start my day with a plate of sugar, so I went to the buffet and put together a meal that was appropriate for me.
Because this will be relevant in a moment, here was my breakfast:[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge'] spinach, walnuts and a poached egg. The buffet didn’t have poached eggs alone; they were part of the eggs Benedict. But I simply eat around unwanted foods, so I ate the egg and left the English muffin and Canadian bacon on my plate. No sauce.
A woman in the seminar walked over to my table and said I wasn’t complying with the fitness instructor’s guidelines. She pointed her finger at each item on my plate, one at a time, and criticized it. This happened while I was still eating my meal.
If you’re thinking it was inappropriate for her to do that, I agree. Perhaps to my discredit, I objected to her behavior, and explained my objection to the fitness instructor’s guidelines to start the day with sugar.
What can we take from this? (Other than not to criticize other people’s food while they’re eating!)
– Know your nutrition needs. These may be different from your likes. Know what you need to thrive and feel good. Seek out those foods, no matter what.
– Don’t let other people’s guidelines steer you away from the foods you know are best for you. The myth that fruit is healthful persists. Many people still have no idea that fructose — the sugar in fruit — is arguably the most unhealthful sugar. Stay with what works for you, no matter what.
– Navigate a buffet carefully to find what you need, especially vegetables. I found the spinach for my breakfast at the omelet station. Diced tomatoes and mushrooms were also there. If there are no salads, a burrito station can provide lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and more. You get the idea. Find vegetables, no matter what.
– Know how to find what you need on a restaurant menu. Friends laugh at me because my meals “always look the same.” They do: protein, vegetables, complex starch, healthful fat. Do I care if my friends laugh? Absolutely not. I just want the meal I want — and have learned to create it, no matter what.
For example, I’ve ordered two salads for my main course when the menu offered nothing better. In the south, I’ve ordered fried chicken and scraped off the breading with my fork. Keep your needs in mind and forget the rest — including the House Specialty! It’s frequently a high-fat, sauce-laden extravaganza that might make you feel ill afterward.
– Pay attention to how you feel after a meal — both good and bad. If everyone else felt good after a meal but you didn’t, that food wasn’t for you. If you felt great, try to duplicate that meal as closely as possible at other times and places.
– Remember your protein needs above all. Keep it as lean as possible. The fitness instructor told us protein is overrated — but he knew nothing about foods and brain chemistry.
If you’re a sugar addict who’s trying to stay away from sugar, protein is key. It will help you survive and thrive as you give up sugar. If you need to carry envelopes of protein powder with you, do it. I’ve done that many times. Get your protein, no matter what.
– Don’t worry about the opinions of others. You deserve to eat right and feel good. No matter what![/wlm_private]
