Jamcore Training Blog

By Bonnie Pfiester

Someone recently asked my opinion on power-walking with a pet. Although I don’t personally recommend pets for workout partners, I feel the same way about partnering up with anyone who could slow down your intensity or distract you.

My suggestion would be to completely separate walking your pet and exercising your body. Walking a pet is great for daily activity, but not for fat-burning cardiovascular exercise. Many people would consider their morning walk exercise. However, most people don’t get their heart rate high enough for it to actually be considered exercise.

Your exercise regimen should be very purposeful, with as little distractions as possible. For a fat-burning workout, it is important to keep your heart rate up and keep it steady. Your pace must be set by you, not your pet. Exercising with a pet only works if your pet is a well-trained and experienced fitness partner.

From time to time, I will see a person power walking or running very effectively with their dog. Nevertheless, this is extremely rare. A dog would have to learn how to consistently “heel”; staying right by your side, while keeping up with your pace.

Another reason you would need a well-trained dog is because you would need to be able to swing your arms freely for the most effective workout. This means your pet would need to stay by your side while allowing the leash to hang freely. If you are controlling your pet with one hand, you are unable to add upper body rotation which increases the heart rate and tightens the mid-section.

Although my dog, Tank, walks very nicely by my side and even allows me to swing my arms, he’s a slow-poke. I have to admit I love walking my dog, but the only one exercising is Tank - not me.

There are simply too many variables when you bring your pet along. People will want to stop and pet your dog. If you are like me, you are proud of your pet and enjoy showing your “baby” off. Another obstacle is that animals are easily distracted, which can also slow you down. Dogs will want to stop and sniff things or use the restroom. Each time they slow down, or stop, so does your heart rate.

Unless your dog is in better shape than you are, or you need your dog to drag you around the block in order to get you out of the house, I say leave the pet at home. When it comes to choosing a workout partner, pet or not, your ideal partner should match or challenge your own intensity and pace.

Popularity: 1% [?]

By Carrie Guthmiller

Paul Chek developed the “Poopie Line-up” and the “Poopie Policeman” to teach clients, and children, how to recognize symptoms of dehydration, poor digestion, and toxicity. The “Poopie Policeman” represents a healthy bowel movement. For a bowel movement to qualify as a “Poopie Policeman”, it must:

• Be well shaped and consistent in contour
• Pass easily
• Be light brown in color
• Smell natural, almost earthy- not foul
• Float, yet doesn’t require multiple attempts to flush.

Familiarity with the following “Bowel Bandits” will help diagnose an irregular or dysfunctional digestive/elimination system.

The Flasher: The flasher gives you a peek at the undigested food particles in the stool. It’s not normal to see food particles in your stool, as it’s a sign of food intolerance or an inflammatory disorder of the digestive system.

Diarrhella: Diarrhella’s crime is one of passion. It’s the body’s desperate attempt at detoxification. Even if you are constipated and dehydrated, your body will scavenge extra water to remove toxins from your body. If you fluctuate between constipation and diarrhea once a month or more within a one-year period, it’s time to re-evaluate your diet.

Pellet Man: Pellet poops resemble rabbit or sheep manure, and may indicate altered states between peristalsis of the colon and dehydration.

The Bodybuilder: Bodybuilder poops are often larger in diameter than a “Poopie Policeman” and are hard to pass. Such bowel movements sometimes come from eating too many dehydrated and processed foods, especially protein bars and shakes.

Olympic Swimmer: Lighter in color than the Poopie Policeman due to the high content of undigested fat, Chek calls them Olympic Swimmers because they are difficult to flush. The Olympic Swimmer may indicate a deficiency in bile, which breaks down fats.

Mr. Sinker ‘n’ Stinker: This mean little bowel bandit often appears after being exposed to processed foods, a toxic environment, or medical drugs, particularly after undergoing a surgical procedure where general anesthesia was used. Mr. Sinker ‘n’ Stinker is one of the meanest fellas you’ll ever encounter in the bathroom. If he’s yours, he’s very hard to get rid of and if he’s not, his smell is enough to make your hair stand on end! So if he comes to call, take steps to detoxify your body.

Pay attention and make sure you’re getting a “Poopie Policeman”, as this will tell you if you have healthy digestive function. If you’re seeing any of the aforementioned “Bowl Bandits”, drink more water, get your stress levels under control, and consider re-evaluating your diet.

Popularity: 2% [?]

By Jamie Yu

Don’t you just hate it when life’s daily routine gets in the way of you finding time to exercise?

For some of us, work and family take priority over our health. Not to say that’s a bad thing, but if you aren’t fit and healthy, do you not think your family and work life will suffer in return? It is possible to find time to exercise and still not neglect the other importance aspects of your life. Plus, you don’t need anything more than 15 minutes maximum in your day.

It’s been shown in studies that short high intense bursts of exercise for a few minutes per day actually has the same health benefits of at least one hour of “moderate paced” exercise. The trick is get the heart-rate up for a short period of time, and then bring it back down to lesser rate for short period of time, and repeat this for several minutes.

Here are few things you could try after a brief warm-up:

• Stair Running:
  Your stairs at home can be used as a great way to exercise, start by sprinting up them. Once you’re at the top, walk back down them. Repeat this several times. You can also do this on an outside flight of stairs if you have access to them.
  

• Shuttle Runs:
  You can do this out in your backyard. Set up cones at either end and also place two in the middle, about 5 meters apart. You can create make-shift cones out of common household objects like sauce pan lids or bowls even! From the first cone, sprint to the second cone and sprint back to the first cone and then run to the third cone and then return to the first cone and then sprint to the last cone and sprint back to the first cone again. Ensure you are bending down and touching each cone every time. Straight after this, do a lap or two of the yard at walking pace, getting your breath back and lowering your heart rate, and then repeat the shuttle run once more. Do about 3-4 circuits. Again, you could do this in the nearby park if you have one.
  

• Burpees and Jumping Jacks:
  If you’re not feeling as fit to perform the above, then you could try a little circuit of twenty burpees or jumping jacks followed by a sprint on the spot, getting your knees up high for thirty seconds. Then, to bring your heart rate down somewhat, you can do some marching on the spot for sixty seconds and then repeat. You can do this circuit absolutely anywhere, including your bedroom or living area at home.
  

Besides the fat burning benefits, it’s been shown that this type of exercise can also improve the function and structure of blood vessels, in particular arteries that deliver blood to our muscles and heart.

So now there is no excuse for not finding the time to exercise….

So what are you waiting for?

Popularity: 4% [?]

What does it take to be an Olympic champion? In fact, what does it take to be the most winning Olympic athlete in history? For Michael Phelps, it takes long, grueling workouts and an obscene amount of calories.

The big-footed kid from Baltimore captivated America and the world as he quickly swam to the top of the marquee in Beijing 2008. His record amount of eight gold medals in a single Games gave him the title of most Olympic gold medals – fourteen in all – as well as most medals won during one Olympics.

An unlikely hero, Phelps grew up as a fidgety youngster who had trouble concentrating, problems at school, and was constantly picked on by his peers. Diagnosed with ADHD, he was medicated for a while, but ultimately, it was his intense swimming routine that helped him cope with his learning disability. By middle school, Phelps was off drugs and turned to his swimming schedule to keep him grounded.

At 23 years old, he’s still got that level-headed, hard-working sense, but it takes a lot more to keep his engine going. After-school practices and nighttime swims have evolved into intense training sessions that take up five hours per day, six days per week. To maintain his fuel level, Phelps eats an unheard of 12,000 calories per day. To anyone whose seen his six pack, this seems impossible – but you also must consider how many calories he burns per hour in the pool. Swimming is naturally a huge calorie burner, but for a peak athlete like Phelps, the payoff is exponential. Experts estimate that Phelps burns 1000-1200 calories per hour when he’s in the water.

To keep up his energy, Phelps eats vast quantities of food. His breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals are comprised of 4,000 calories each. Instead of eating just pancakes or egg sandwiches or grits and an omelet, Michael will choose all of the above. Copious amounts of carbohydrate-laden pizza, pasta, and energy drinks are on hand to keep Phelps going as well. These eating practices are not sustainable for anyone other than an elite, world-class athlete – but for Michael Phelps, it seems to be doing a body good!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Exercising during pregnancy has obvious benefits for the mom, such as keeping weight gain under control, maintaining fitness level, and relieving stress, but until recently, little has been known about the positive effects on the unborn baby.

Research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society implied that exercise has cardiovascular benefits not only for the mom, but for the developing fetus as well. Dr. Linda E. May and colleagues from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences hypothesized that fetuses whose mothers exercised would have better autonomic nervous system function than fetuses not exposed to exercise.

The women that participated in the study were between 28-36 weeks pregnant. Five women performed moderate intensity aerobic exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes, 3 times per week, and five women did not exercise regularly. Fetal heart rate and heart rate variability were measured, and the heart rates of the fetuses exposed to exercise were found to be lower than the fetuses that were not exposed to exercise. As well, the heart rate variability was higher in the exercise group.

May concluded, “When the mom exercises during pregnancy, the unborn baby gets the same type of training effect that you would see in an adult — so you see the lower heart rate and also improved heart rate variability, which is evidence of improvements in the nervous system of the heart. Maternal exercise may be the earliest intervention to improve the heart of children and possibly the best.”

So, for those of you that are pregnant or know someone that is, encourage them to exercise both for themselves and their unborn baby!

Popularity: 12% [?]

By Jaime Yu

Natural fruit and vegetables have been proven time and time again to be good for our overall health. One vegetable in particular is one we may not think twice about when we go for a carrot or tomato instead.

It’s called Beetroot.

Besides the fact that it is low in calories and has an abundance of minerals vital for our overall health, it is also a fabulous source of tryptophan which is the pre-cursor to your feel good and calming hormones. The main benefits we might find more attractive to us as athletes is that the more tryptophan our bodies can produce more productive sleep, which in turn will help overall muscle growth and recovery. Sleep is an often forgotten facet in our lives and something some people take for granted. If we are having regular sessions of deeper sleep, we are giving the body a better opportunity to grow muscle.

Beetroot is also found to be high in betalains. These pigments found in the layers of the vegetable are rich in antioxidants that are proven to reduce free radicals in the blood and prevent the oxidative reactions that occur from free radical build up that causes many diseases. When we put our bodies through extreme amounts of stress, particularly when we exercise, there is a natural increase in free radical production.

It’s also high in the mineral boron which in Roman times was used as an aphrodisiac. This is because boron plays an important role in the production of sex hormones.

What’s even more intriguing is that in a recent short-term study with 14 volunteers, half drank 500mls of pure beetroot juice and the other half drank pure water. The end result for the beetroot drinking group was a dramatic reduction in their blood pressure.

The study, conducted by Dr Andrew Webb from the William Harvey Research Institute at Barts and London School of Medicine, found that beetroot, which is high in nitrates, converted to nitric oxide when mixed with bacteria in human saliva. The nitric oxide dilated the blood vessels, allowing blood to move more freely around the body resulting in a drop in pressure. This shows that foods, and particularly vegetables, high in dietary nitrates can prove beneficial in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

So when selecting a vegetable to go into a salad or even to add as a delicious side dish for your main meal, give beetroot a try.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I know so many people who are in great physical shape, but can’t seem to help indulging their sweet tooth – a lot. Sure, they are fit now. But what will happen as their bodies and lifestyles change with age? Besides the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, there is another danger in high consumption of sugar: calcium loss.

People with a high sugar intake typically lose a higher percentage of calcium through their urinary excretion. This can cause health problems, including bone weakness, osteoporosis, and traces of calcium in the kidney. Hypertension is also associated with increased urinary excretion of calcium. Experts have always advised that sugar and sweets should be consumed sparingly, but many young people assume that they can eat all the sugary candy and soda they want while they are young and active. Here is yet another reason to watch the sugar intake in our diets!

Popularity: 16% [?]

By David Berman

I want you to do a little experiment. Get an ice pack, and get a watch with a timer. Put the ice pack on your thigh, and start the timer. After 1 minute has elapsed, remove the ice pack.

Now take a look at your skin. What color is your skin where the ice pack was laying? For most, the skin will look white / blanched.

Now put the ice pack on your other thigh and leave it there for 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes have elapsed, remove the ice pack.

What color is your skin now? Most people will find that their skin will be red. And if your skin turns red after only 5 minutes, you’ll probably find that it turns really red after 20 minutes.

When your skin begins to cool, the initial reaction is constriction (shrinking of the diameter) of blood vessels. This happens after a short period of time (1-2 minutes for most people). The result of constriction of the blood vessels is that “whiteness” or blanching.

However, after some time has gone by, your body reacts to the cold by actually INCREASING the size of the blood vessels in that area to send more blood in to warm it up and prevent damage to the skin/tissues (this is known as the Hunting Effect).

When you are hurt, you tend not to move the injured area. The result of not moving is that your muscles don’t pump normally. Without this active pumping of muscles, the abundance of blood in the area can pool, resulting in an increase of swelling!

That’s the down side of icing for too long. Now let’s look at the benefits of ice and how to use it.

The best use of ice is to reduce pain. When pain is reduced, muscles in the area can “relax” and you can start to move your muscles or joints (even if it’s just a little bit). The relaxation of your muscles and the movement of your joints can lead to improved circulation. This is healthy, normal circulation and this removes excess fluid and chemicals from the area resulting in less pain and reduced swelling.

So here is the takeaway: You should ice an area long enough for the analgesic / pain reducing effect to occur, but not long enough for the skin to turn red-colored.

For most people, 2-3 minutes is long enough to get this effect. After 2-3 minutes, you should remove the ice pack and do some light (pain free) movement of the area. Then wait until your skin returns to “normal” temperature. At that time, if you like, you can repeat the brief icing. Repeat this on / off pattern of icing / exercise for as long as you desire.

This combination of efficient use of ice and low intensity, pain free motion should have you back in action in no time!

Popularity: 18% [?]

To see real results, you need to be in the right mindset. But how do you know if you’re there yet? And if you aren’t there, how can you get there?

Industry experts have used a simple, one-stop tool for years to help clients lead healthier lives. The Weight Loss Readiness Test gauges how mentally prepared you are to start a program that will change your life. With indexes on motivation, expectations, confidence, hunger and eating cues, binge eating and purging, and emotional eating, the assessment aims to pinpoint your challenge areas and determine if you are ready to start a new diet and exercise program.

Critics may oppose the idea that a person should continue on with unhealthy lifestyle habits until he or she is ‘ready’ to diet, asserting that any diet is better than no diet at all. However, what we know about weight loss is that gradual changes are far more beneficial than a binary mentality – either you’re dieting or you’re not. Instead of yo-yoing between committing to and cheating on a strict diet, it’s better to implement small, permanent changes – for example, giving up all soda or cutting back on refined sugars.

Specifically, the tests asks participants to rate their level of motivation and commitment – are you dedicated to finding new ways to lose weight, to go the distance, to take risks? Or are you simply starting a diet because you think that you should? Do you wish you were skinnier, or do you really want to lead a healthier lifestyle?

Next, how realistic are your ambitions? Are you hoping to drop 30 pounds in two months, or will you work towards a more reasonable 1-2 pounds per week? Ambitious, yet attainable goals are critical for new dieters. If your expectations are unrealistically high, you are likely to get discouraged and quit your plan. But if you set small but consistent goals for yourself, you’re more likely to succeed and continue with your new program.

The test can also give you an awareness of potential triggers that can derail your diet. Knowing, for example, that you like to celebrate good news with large portions and high-calorie meals can help you stop yourself next time around, considering the consequences of what you eat. You can prepare yourself to deal with precarious situations by coming up with creative ways to prevent overeating or comfort snacking.

Finally, you need to be confident before you start on a new fitness endeavor. Confidence will inspire determination and results. To truly commit to weight loss and maintenance, it is important to devote time, energy, and resources each day. If you are not confident in your ability to do this, your diet is much more likely to fail. If you cannot dedicate yourself to making your lifestyle more active, your fitness plan can easily fall to the wayside. But by starting out with small, concrete personal challenges – such as parking at the end of the lot, always taking the stairs, or cutting back on your caffeine habit – you can build your confidence. With this newfound self-esteem and conviction, you are on the road to living the fit, active lifestyle.

Popularity: 32% [?]

No, we’re not talking about the kind of plan that made Jared Fogle famous. We’re talking about good old, plain substitution, as in, substituting healthier foods for your favorites. Make these simple changes and watch the pounds fly off!

1. Shredded cheddar – Achieve the same zing with less calories: substitute 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese instead.
2. Breakfast muffin – Sub a whole-grain English muffin and use a low-fat, low-cal flavored spread. Enjoy the taste of a blueberry muffin with less of the processed carbs!
3. Cookies – Instead of indulging in a single cookie, try squares of dark chocolate. Try 1-inch dark chocolate pieces and reap the health benefits along with the taste.
4. Dairy Products – Switch to skim! You can enjoy more of the substance that does a body good with less fat and less calories. Be sure to also make the switch when dealing with yogurt, smoothies, and other dairy-based products.
5. Ranch dressing – Instead of loading up healthy veggies with fattening Ranch, why not dip into a delicious bowl of hummus?

Popularity: 28% [?]