Flexibility vs Mobility

There seems to be a bit of confusion around the concepts of flexibility and mobility. So let's begin with a couple of definitions. Flexibility is the ability to flex, extend, or circumduct a joint through its intended full range of motion. So we're talking about the length of the tissues here, nothing more.

Mobility, or joint mobility, is the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion, with control. So mobility is based on active movement while flexibility involves static holds and is dependent upon gravity or passive forces. Mobility also requires strength to produce full-range movement, whereas flexibility is passive, and does not require any strength.

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A Maverick's Guide To: Booming Fitness

In the past, aging has often meant a gradual loss of health and vigor as the years progress. But with the recent advances in research on aging, we now know this slow decline is no longer inevitable. With the right exercise and nutritional program, even an unfit person can turn around most of the consequences of aging.

We know, for example, that VO2max, the single best measure of cardiovascular fitness, decreases about 10 percent per decade once you’ve reached 30 years of age. And while we’ve all heard the 30-minute recommendation of moderately intense cardio from the ACSM, new research suggests that your health and fitness benefit most from short bursts of high intensity exertion – intervals.

The most likely reason is that intervals stimulate your body to release growth hormone (HGH), the anti-aging hormone in adults. It signals the body to burn fat and grow muscle. Researchers report that this hormone is released in direct proportion to the intensity of the exercise being performed. And, that a 30 second all-out sprint can increase your HGH by as much as 530 percent!

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Burn Fat Faster With Shorter Workouts

The most frequent reason I hear for not working out is: I don't have time. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest a couple of ways to effectively work your muscles and increase fat burning while spending less time in the gym.

The simplest way to decrease your time in the gym is to increase the "density" of your workouts. Workout density refers to the amount of work you perform in a specific period of time. One way to do this is to use supersets.

Most weight training routines involve performing a set of one exercise, resting for a minute or two and then repeating the same exercise. With this protocol, the rest between sets takes up a lot of time.

With supersets, you perform two exercises for opposing muscle groups (such as chest and back), back to back, which enables you to do more work in a shorter amount of time. So rather than rest after the first exercise, you quickly perform another set for the opposing muscle group, then rest, and repeat this sequence until you have completed all of the sets for those two exercises.

One benefit of this type of training is that it raises your metabolic rate so you burn more calories following the workout. This concept is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). It refers to the idea that you use more oxygen after a workout than you normally do at rest. And since oxygen is used to burn calories, taking in more oxygen will cause you to burn more calories.

According to researchers, the higher EPOC is caused by elevated blood lactate, an increase in circulating catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine) and anabolic hormones. And, the latest findings suggest that a well-designed workout can keep your metabolism elevated for as long 48 hours following training!

Another way to manipulate your workouts so that you burn more calories with less time in the gym is to use complexes. A complex involves performing two or more exercises, with little or no rest between sets, using one piece of equipment with the same load.

One advantage to using complexes over supersets is that if you workout in a busy facility during peak hours, you only tie up one piece of equipment. Another distinction is that complexes usually involve a sequence of exercises with little or no rest between sets, so you elevate your metabolic rate even more than you do with supersets.

An example of a complex is a barbell stiff-leg deadlift, followed by a barbell bent-over row, followed by a barbell upright row. The best exercise choices are movements that you can transition to seamlessly. And, the key to finding the right weight is to use the weakest exercise in the sequence to determine the load.

Obviously, this type of training is not for beginners, nor the faint of heart. But if you're looking for a way to crank up your metabolism and are short on time, give supersets and complexes a try!

Chewing the Fat Intro

Discussions between TLN Founder Phil LeClair and Special Correspondent Mike Davey on a variety of nutrition and fitness topics.

During the more than a decade-long friendship with Fitness Trainer and TLN Correspondent Mike Davey, we've had some pretty excellent conversations on just about everything to do with nutrition, fitness and supplements. Many times post-chat, I would say to myself, "Man, I wish I had recorded our discussion. It had good stuff to share with others" Chewing The Fat (unsaturated, of course!) serves the purpose by corralling some of of our conversations and share them with the TLN Network. Stay tuned for Chewing the Fat posts!

Along with serving as a TLN Special Correspondent, Mike is the founder and president of Iron Fitness Training. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Worcester State College, received Certified Fitness Trainer (CFT) education from International Sports Sciences Association and is a member of Staley Training Systems Coaching Group. He specializes in Weight Training Fundamentals, Building a Fitness Program Around a Busy Schedule, Better Eating Solutions, Assembling an Affordable, Yet Functional Home Gym.


His health and fitness philosophy: "There is a lingering opinion that you need to spend several days and hours a week in the gym to make progress and reach desired goals. This is totally untrue. My mission is to help dispel this myth and educate my clients with the fundamentals and basic tools necessary to develop a fitness program that works for their lifestyle and needs. From there, the sky's the limit!”


Personally, I feel that Mike is a great "learn by doing" guy. During the past decade, he has learned and done many times - with beneficial results. The continuous desire for nutrition and fitness knowledge has led to a professional that teaches from everyday experience. His positive nutrition, fitness and wellness habits can't help but rub off on his clients. --Phil LeClair

Anti-Super Size Me Film Coming Soon...

There's an anti-Super Size Me documentary coming out soon that offers an alternative to the eating approach used in Super Size Me. Tom Naughton, the filmmaker, wants to show that you can eat fast food without getting fat and suffering health consequences. Here's what Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power,has to say:

"Tom watched Supersize Me a while back and was struck by the sort of dishonesty of the whole thing ... Tom decided to make his own version of such a movie with a little different twist: he decided to eat fast food for a month to see if he could lose weight. He ate hamburgers without the buns, didn’t drink the high-fructose-corn-syrup laden soft drinks, but had water or ice tea instead, and, in general, followed a fast-food low-carb diet. He ended having the exact opposite experience as did Morgan Spurlock (the star of Supersize Me): he lost weight and improved his lipid profile."

Tom is a stand up comedian as well as an author. So this film should be entertaining as well as informative. I highly recommend Michael Eades' blog for more information...

Here is a short segment from the film:

Gary Taubes, Good Calories Bad Calories

I just finished the first chapter of Good Calories, Bad Calories written by Gary Taubes, an award-winning science writer. This book may be one of the best nutritional books of the past twenty years.

Reuters recently published a review in their Lifestyle: Health & Fitness section. Here's an excerpt from that piece:

"Good Calories, Bad Calories" examines an alternative hypothesis to the calorie- and fat-centric idea through decades of literature and clinical data on diet and obesity, Taubes says. It's another way to explain observations about diet and weight gain, he says, one for which strong data existed. "If we had taken this other fork in the road," he asks, "what would we have come to believe?"

In the first chapter, Taubes explains how we got to where we are today regarding public health policies and dietary recommendation. Then he examines two competing hypotheses. One is the diet-heart hypothesis, which describes how we came to believe that dietary fat causes heart disease. The other is the carbohydrate hypothesis.

I'll be commenting more on this once I get a little further into the book. But in the meantime check out what this New York Times article has to say...

Supplement With Creatine And CLA To Improve Body Composition

Looking for a way to enhance the results of your strength training?

New research suggests that supplementing creatineand conjugated linoleic acidin conjunction with strength training increases strength and fat loss.

In a clinical study at McMaster University, researchers tested 39 adults aged 65 to 85. One group did an hour of strength training twice a week and took five grams of creatine and six grams of CLA each day for six months. The other group followed the same exercise protocol but took placebos.

At the end of six months, the 11 men and 10 women on the creatine/CLA lost an average of 1.9 kilograms, or four and a half pounds of fat, while the placebo group lost only 0.4 kg, or about a pound. There was also a greater increase in lean muscle mass in the creatine/CLA group, 2.1 kg, or about five pounds of muscle compared to only 0.9 kg, or about two pounds, in the placebo group.

Creatine has been popular with body builders for its ability to encourage muscle growth, for years. It is a naturally occurring nutrient found in the muscle which can be supplemented to improve strength and lean muscle mass. And conjugated linoleic acid is a naturally occurring fatty acid found in animal and dairy fat which is known to reduce body fat.

Combining this combo with a strength training program is a great idea. And as the research has shown, this protocol may be especially useful if you're looking for a little boost to stave off the effects of aging.

Tough Love Nutrition Group: Check it Out!

In 2007, I created the Tough Love Nutrition Group.

Hosted by Google, the TLN Group is an awesome community portal.

The highlight is a Discussions page that allows you to post a nutrition or fitness question or share insight with other group members.

You will also discover a growing selection of self-help nutrition, eating and food articles. This will continue to expand in coming months and include fitness, exercise and weight training info as well.

Here are a few of the recent items I posted on the site:

Discussion Topics: Fat Burning Foods?

Pages: Tough Love Nutrition Q and A Archives

Files: Tough Love Healthy Eating Guide, Parts 1-4

Enjoy and Just Eat Right!

Track Your Lean Body Mass

I'm a big believer in measuring lean body mass. I think it's the single best way to determine your level of fitness. To quote Art De Vany, "Your lean body mass is the metabolically active you. It is the tissue that allows you to function and think and live."

Lean body mass is defined as, "anything that is not fat or water.” It is the total weight of your bones, muscles and organs (including the brain).

I think too many people focus on their total weight without considering the importance of body composition -- the ratio of lean body mass to fat. It's all too common for individuals to diet without including strength training as part of their program. This approach results in a high percentage of body fat even though the individual may appear thin.

If you include weight training as part of your fat loss program, you increase your lean body mass and raise your metabolic rate which helps keep the fat off because you burn more calories at rest. And, activities such as weight lifting and interval training promote hormone drives that keep you young in addition to helping you stay lean and fit.

While there are many methods for measuring your lean body mass, hydrostatic (underwater) weighing is considered the gold standard. But since this method is impractical most trainers use skinfold measurements.

If you'd like to measure your lean body mass, you can purchase an inexpensive skinfold caliper here and use the calculators on my site to measure your lean body mass. Once you have a baseline, continue to track your lean body mass throughout your life as a way to monitor your health and fitness!

Why Stretch?

Flexibility is defined as the measure of a joints movement through a normal range of motion. A flexible joint has the ability to move through a greater range of motion so you’re much less likely to become injured in the course of your everyday activities and sports.

Flexibility training, or stretching, improves posture. Poor postural habits can cause your muscles and the connective tissue that surrounds them to mold into the positions you maintain throughout your day, (like the rounded shoulders that develop from spending too many hours in front of a computer). Stretching these short tight muscles helps realign the soft tissue structures, so it's a lot easier maintain good posture.

Probably the greatest benefit is the effect stretching has on the low back. By increasing the flexibility of your hamstrings, hip flexors, quadriceps, and other muscles that attach to the pelvis, you reduce the tension on the lumbar spine, so you’re much less prone to suffer from low back pain.

One more point of interest is that researchers claim stretching immediately before exercise doesn’t prevent injury; but stretching after training reduces muscle soreness, so stretch following your workouts, when your muscles are warmed up.

For a guide to the individual stretches, click here....

Fitness 411: Inside the Fitness Studio

If you're considering a weekend in Santa Barbara, California and you'd like to catch a workout in one of the fitness studios while in town, read on...

Thinking about getting in shape? If you’re interested in working one on one with a personal trainer the small niche fitness boutiques located in and around Santa Barbara provide an abundance of choices both in the environment and training approaches featured in the different facilities. Recently I visited a number of these studios, looking for a new place to train my clients, and was amazed at what Santa Barbara has to offer.

Instead of the muscle isolation machines, typical of the traditional gym setting, most studios are filled with stability balls, medicine balls, bands, cables, foam rollers and all sorts of other tools designed for a more functional approach to fitness. These facilities don’t only cater to strength building athletes; they’re filled with everyone from youthful competitors looking to improve in sports, to seniors working to build stronger bones. After visiting a few of the local hot spots and exploring some of their diverse training approaches, I zeroed in on a few of the highlights

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Mikki Reilly Featured in C Magazine

C Magazine features Mikki Reilly in an article on the top ten body gurus in California. Here's what they said...

"Method Functional Training, which prepares the body for everyday activities and sports. It focuses on movement rather than individual muscles. Special attention is paid to core muscles."

"Signature Exercise Move Reverse wood chop--do this by extending your arms out while holding onto a low cable pulley (at the gym) and rotating your arms and torso while standing. It's a functional move that follows the rotational plane to strengthen the core muscles."

To see the entire article, pick up a copy of the magazine. It's their Best of California issue -- January/February 2007. And it's on the news stands now!

Fitness 411: Intervals: the Secret to Fat Loss

If you're one of the many people struggling to keep up in the fast-paced world of cell phones, pagers, and laptops, with little time left for fitness, then intervals may be just what you're looking for...

For years we've all heard if you want to lose fat you need to spend endless hours on a treadmill or riding a bike. But thanks to new discoveries in cardiovascular training, that's no longer the case. Comparisons have shown that intervals (short bursts of get-out-of-breath sprints) are superior to aerobics (long. slow distance training) for fat loss!

Here's why...

• Interval training stimulates your body to release growth hormone, or HGH.
• Intervals protect your muscles so you don't burn them for fuel.
• And, interval training elevates your metabolism, sometimes for as long as 24 hours, after training.

For more info on this topic, Read Full Article

TLN Advisor: Mikki Reilly

Along with serving as an advisor and valuable resource to TLN, Reilly is the president of FitnessTransform.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UCSB in Exercise and Health Science and Communication; and a Masters of Fitness Sciences (MFS) certification from the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA).

She was presented the ISSA Distinguished Achievement Award which signified placement in the top 1% of 15,000 certified trainers worldwide. Reilly has been published in Med Fit, a personal training trade journal for ISSA, as well as in the Balance Bar Newsletter. In addition, she served as a member of the Balance Health and Fitness Advisory Board and on Met-rx's Worlds Best Personal Trainer Advisory Staff. Reilly is listed as a quotable authority on fitness, conditioning and exercise by the Fitness Products Council's Journal, Tracking the Fitness Movement. She was also featured in The Complete Guide to Fiscal Fitness/The Business Guide for Personal Trainers published by the ISSA.