If You’re Reading This Post…
Get off your computer or smartphone and go enjoy some physical activity in the sunshine! Come to think of it, I’ll go do some of that too 
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew Vazquez
Andrew L. Vazquez | Exercise Physiologist & Personal Trainer
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezPoor Rubrics & Trainer Appraisal
A lot times trainers are judged on how tough they are. This isn’t exactly the most practical rubric for appraising a trainer, but it certainly is a persistent one. Part of the reason for its impracticality is that it is based on the client’s perception. What people perceive to be a good workout and what a good workout actually is doesn’t usually line up. Essentially, this judgement is passed in relation to the concept of intensity.
Intensity is not an absolute value. We can even go a step further and say that intensity might not even have a numerical value at all. When we talk about intensity we are really talking about the level of difficulty of a particular activity or exercise irrespective of external load. While external loads may help us assign a number to grade the difficulty of an exercise, it does not allow us to account for all types of intensity;body-weight exercises being a prime example of non-graded intensity.
Intensity, as defined by professional standards and opinion, can be radically different from perceived level of difficulty, It is typically the perceived level of difficulty that leads clients to label trainers as tough or not. The big question is: where is the true difficulty coming from? Is it because of a simple increase in external load, or is it due to legitimately difficult functional movements? Alternatively, is difficulty being perceived because of the trainer’s attitude and style?
Apart from level of difficulty of exercises, clients also judge trainers based on how sore they feel on subsequent days. This is also an impractical rubric if only because physiology varies between individuals. What may cause delayed onset muscle soreness in one person, may not elicit the same reaction in another.
If subjective levels of toughness make a poor rubric for appraising a trainer’s performance, then by what merit should a trainer be appraised? In my frank opinion, a trainer should be appraised by the performance of their worst client. If, even at the lower end of the performance spectrum, a client has basic mastery over essential gym skills, then a trainer has already done them an admirable service.
Training should be about learning, not about receiving deftly crafted and periodic beatings.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezExercise slows muscle wasting from age and heart failure
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507165341.htm
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezReplace the Sugar in Your Coffee with Cinnamon for a Flavor-Packed Alternative [Coffee Hacks]
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezThe Finer Points of Coaching
I tend to think of exercises as micro missions. Each mission has it’s purpose in a workout. Likewise, every workout has it’s purpose in an overall program. One key thing to keep in mind is that all missions come with a defined set of variables. The more variables you have to worry about, the wider the margin of error becomes. Clients often say that it’s the simplest looking things that turn out to be the hardest. Its a very true and fair observation. The primary reason for this is that simple exercises naturally come with fewer variables. It’s difficult to err when you only deal with X & Y, as opposed to X,Y,Z.
Part of the natural progression of things in general is to move from the least difficult task to a task that demands higher levels of skill. This is where the nature of a coach’s true job is shown in high relief. A good coach will take a difficult task and distill it down to it’s key elements. By extension, a coach will also relay said elements in a manner that is easy to understand.
The distilling of a complex task not only requires effective communication, it requires active demonstration. A coach’s mastery over language and technical terms does not guarantee immediate understanding on the part of the trainee or athlete. This is precisely where leadership comes in. Being able to set the standard and perform up to that expectation is what entitles a coach to the respect of the individuals he or she trains.
Whatever methods are used; we can safely say that coaching boils down to setting the bar and giving everyone the means to reach expectations by simplifying the difficult. It is not however, a coach’s true job to remove all difficulty and obstacles inherent to higher levels of performance.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezThe Nature of Circumstance
My definition of circumstance is a collection of variables that influence the final outcome of a matter. Truth be told, whenever we witness an event, we are always positioned at the culmination of the situation. That being said, it’s important to realize that we may not be privy to all of the information regarding a particular instance. Often times we must look at the end product of a situation and work our way backwards in order to get a deeper appreciation of what has transpired.
When you’re dealing with people working your ways backwards will require empathy. Empathy, by all typical notions, is the ability to place yourself in someone elses shoes. This is particularly tough if you don’t know all the facts. Because of this, its probably best to revise our definition of empathy. Empathy is the component of the imagination that allows us to extrapolate circumstance(s) from the end result. What this really boils down to is creating inferences about a situation based on our common human experience.
We tend to believe that our problems are original in nature. They really aren’t. It’s because of this that we are all capable of empathy. We may not necessarily know all of the facts, but our humanity and imagination can very well land us in someone elses shoes; if only to get a better understanding of the matter.
As a final note: it is extremely easy to condemn. In my experience condemnation sometimes stems from lack of imagination and or lack of knowledge. As Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
“Empathy is the imagination that we need to understand those around us.” -ALV
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezShould Healthcare Professionals Be Fit?
If you’re an average human being you’ve probably spent some time in a hospital. If you’re above average, you may have spent more than your fair share of time there. Whatever the case may be, it’s entirely possible that you’ve witnessed some out of shape healthcare professionals. We tend to believe that those individuals that help safeguard our health also take care of themselves. Sadly this isn’t always the case. Should that really matter to us?
It’s important to understand that health is not synonymous with fitness. As a former schoolmate once pointed out: you don’t have to workout to be healthy. We can argue that health is an overall state of being whereas fitness is simply a subset of that particular state. In a similar vein, its important to understand that exercise is subcategory of physical activity. Being physically active can help with your fitness; just as being fit can help with your overall health. The salient point here? Health is not a guarantee of fitness.
Healthcare professionals are mostly about the restorative component to health. It’s a safe bet that if you’re in a hospital its because something has already gone in an undesired direction. The hospital staff are there to get you back to a basic level of health. The question then becomes whether or not we are satisfied with just a basic level of health.
The true power of exercise is in its ability to improve performance. It goes without saying that performance is a highly relative term. Some train for activities of daily living while others train for the Olympics. Improvement by an inch or a mile is still improvement. That being said, it’s important to assess priorities and understand where our goals fall on the health and fitness continuum.
Should it then matter to us whether or not our healthcare professionals are fit? No. Again, the scope of their function is to restore health, not fitness. This notion goes against the grain of what we know about exercise in terms of benefits. If exercise is good, why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, there are simply too many possible excuses to list.
What do you think?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezFive Best Fitness Tracking Appliances [Hive Five]
Credit to Lifehacker for this post.
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/3XOPWAe4jMo/five-best-fitness-tracking-appliances
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezThe Pioneer Of Your Life Story
One of the lessons I’ve learned as a trainer is that too many options can freeze you in your tracks. When designing a program it’s not only entirely possible, but highly probable, that you will spend a fair amount of time thinking what the best move is. Move, not being the best exercise, but the best overall structure of a program. I don’t think this problem is specific to trainers. When it comes to structuring your own life you may face a similar freeze.
Such a freeze stems from paranoia of failure. No matter which path we take we always have a sneaking suspicion of possibly being wrong. Truthfully, being wrong isn’t the end of the road. Best case scenario when you’re wrong: you learn something valuable. Worst case scenario: you pick up the pieces of whatever wreckage you caused and move on. I truly feel that this paranoia about being wrong over decisions causes a genuine lack of tenacity.
Tenacity, that dogged persistence that wears down even the mightiest of challenges, is sorely in lacking todays modern world. All of the best and brightest pioneers: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, for instance, didn’t have the benefit of a life compass dictating the path they should take. They had an idea and stuck to their guns. The result of their gun-sticking process was the light bulb, Model T, and a new way of manufacturing steel.
It may be entirely true that we aren’t out to create something revolutionary. I do argue that we should all revolutionize our lives to a certain extent. How? By developing tenacity and holding our fears in check. All too often we resort to taking advice from our peers. Sometimes this is analogous to being on a sinking ship and asking the other person the best way to doggy paddle. When you’re in the same boat as someone else, you’re not asking for advice. You are, in fact, looking to commiserate. I find that commiserating doesn’t lead to productivity. It leads to a communal sense of negativity that saps everyone of their ability to do good things.
When it comes to the decisions you make in life imagine yourself as a pioneer. A pioneer, by definition, is someone who is the first to settle or explore an area. You may find yourself going down a life path never explored by any of your peers. That is perfectly Ok. Look at it this way: all of the brightest minds were remembered for their daring to be different. Edison, till this very day is remembered for his contribution of the light bulb, not for all of his failures before getting it right.
When it comes to the gym, being a leader from under the bar means expecting to reach a level of failure. Counterintuitive as it may seem, you want to reach that upper limit of fatigue. No one ever questions this decision to push the limit. Why? Because it’s an accepted standard. In life however, such an accepted standard does not exist. The best we can all do is make a decision and have the tenacity to see it through. I will grant you, that is easier said that done. But where would the fun in life be if that weren’t the case? Go be the pioneer of your life story.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew VazquezCalculating Calorie Requirements
The word calorie gets thrown around a lot in the fitness industry. Usually, when the word calorie comes into play, we tend to think of the terms too much or too little. Most of the time we get hung up on calorie count, particularly in the case of weight loss. In the shuffle of information overload; its easy for us to lose sight of the important, yet, basic facts. Let’s get back to basics.
Its important to understand that the calorie as we know isn’t in it’s scientifically correct form. Technically speaking, a calorie is actually a kilocalorie. Therefore all calories are numerically in the thousands. The scientific community uses the abbreviation kcal to appropriately label calories. If that’s the case why don’t food manufacturer’s label their products that way? Its simple: no one will want to buy a product with thousands of calories on the label. Whatever label you want to use one thing remains perfectly clear: calories are a measure of energy.
By the strictest definition a kilocalorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. Scientific jargon aside, its important to understand that our bodies are essentially heat machines. We use the energy in food and turn it into heat energy which allows us to support bodily functions and do mechanical work.
Why is this of importance to fitness enthusiasts? Its important because of the concept of energy balance. Weight loss and weight gain occur if this balance is disturbed. Since exercise represents a significant calorie expense, its important to be aware of true energy needs. The good news is that simple math can help us determine what our needs in this respect are.
Step 1
The first step in determining energy needs is calculating your basal metabolic rate or BMR. Men and women can use the same formula to determine this. However, there will be one key numeric difference in the calculation.
Men: Multiply your body weight in kg by 1kcal per kg body weight per hour.
Women: same as above except multiply your body weight in kg by 0.9 kcal.
Sample equation for a male: (180 pounds/2.2 =81.8 kg ) *1kcal per kg body weight per hour=81.8. Multiply 81.8 by 24 = 1939.2 kcal per day. In other words 1939.2 kilocalories per day is the basal metabolic rate for a man that weighs 180 lbs.
Step 2
The basal metabolic rate however, is only part of the equation. The next step is to determine a level of activity. The following activity levels can be used when completing your calculations.
Sedentary- Involves mostly sitting, driving, or very low activity levels. (Men:25-40%, Women: 25-35%)
Lightly Active- Involves a lot of sitting and may also involve walking, moving around, and light lifting.
(Men:50-70%,Women: 40-60%)
Moderately Active- Involves work plus exercise.
(Men: 65-80%,Women: 50-70%)
Heavily Active- Involves physical labor; includes heavy lifting
(Men: 90-120%, Women: 80-100%)
Exceptionally Active- Athletes and individuals with physical jobs that also engage in exercise.
(Men: 120-145%, Women:110-130%)
Step 3
The next to last step in determining your daily energy needs is multiplying your BMR from step one by the decimal equivalents of your activity level.
Using the BMR from step one combined with a sedentary activity level, we arrive at the following equation:
1939.2 kcal *.25=484.8 kcal
&
1939.2*.4=775.68
Step 4
The final step is adding the additional kcalories to the calculated BMR.
1939.2+484.8=2424
&
1939.2+775.6=2714.8
Ultimately, our John Doe from step one requires between 2424 and 2714.8 kcals per day to maintain his current weight.
Knowing your daily calorie needs is a vital component in maintaining a healthy body weight. This, in conjunction with a solid understanding of the macronutrients available in your diet, will help put you on a life-long path of fitness and dietetic self sufficiency.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Andrew Vazquez
