December 2017 - IDEA Health & Fitness Association

The Pelvic Floor: Base Support & More

By Joy Keller | December 21, 2017 |

Does the pelvic floor get the props it deserves? Many fitness professionals who specialize in women’s health think it warrants more respect and attention. Trista Zinn, founder of Hypopressives in Toronto, says the pelvic floor is “overlooked and misunderstood by many.” She adds, “Our quality of life and athletic performance literally rest on [the pelvic floor’s] synergistic ability to function with the core as a whole.”

Cultivate Joy Through Mindfulness

By IDEA Editorial Staff | December 21, 2017 |

It’s a busy, technology-dominated world—and most of us are continually spinning, twisting and turning in an effort to “get things done” and “produce.” We work, we raise families, we have countless responsibilities. The truth is, this is distracted living, and it raises stress levels, lowers productivity and interferes with our ability to focus. When we live this way, we fail to cultivate a sense of contentment and joy.

Personal Experience Inspires Client Success

By Ryan Halvorson | December 21, 2017 |

client: John | personal trainer: Tony Phillips, president, Custom Fitness Solutions | location: Cookeville, Tennessee

School of Fish

By Matthew Kadey, MS, RD | December 21, 2017 |

Seafood can be a culinary Jekyll and Hyde.
While most fish species boast a nutritional profile that outclasses meats like beef and chicken, industrial-scale fishing can carry a heavy environmental burden. And some fish are swimming with contaminants you don’t want in your diet.
But there’s no need to spurn seafood entirely. Just get better informed so you can make the best choices for you and the planet. Following these rules can help:

Eat More

Cultivating a Home Yoga Practice

By Dana Bender | December 21, 2017 |

Woman doing home yoga practice

Find out why a home yoga practice can benefit your students, how to encourage them to create the space, and what will help them sustain it.

The Secrets to Building a Successful Business and a Prolific Career

By Ryan Halvorson | December 20, 2017 |

When Jake Trione, owner of TriAffect Fitness, Health and Wellness in Houston, thought about what he wanted to do after 13 years of active duty in the United States Coast Guard, he knew he’d become a personal trainer. “I thought to myself, ‘If I am serious, I should find the most successful professionals in the business and spend time with them,’” he says.

Water Fitness Magic: Method, Modeling and Music

By Meg Root | December 19, 2017 |

Something magical happens when you mix exercise with water. The pool can transform physical activity into something more enjoyable, safe and effective for people of all ages and fitness levels. Buoyancy is a boon to individuals with musculoskeletal issues or other health considerations; it reduces the effects of gravity on weight-bearing joints and provides a supportive, low-impact environment for improving body composition, cardiorespiratory endurance, and muscular strength and flexibility, among other health parameters.

Sample Class: Sweat, Strength & Stretch: S3

By Linda Freeman | December 19, 2017 |

Keep participants engaged and active with this cardio, strength and yoga fusion workout.

Group fitness fans love creative total-body workouts, and this class perfectly fits the bill by combining 3-minute intervals of cardio, strength and yoga into one fun, balanced experience. Customize this template to play to your strengths as a teacher and get people moving!

Partner Up to Warm Up

By Christy Stevenson | December 18, 2017 |

Have you noticed the latest trend? Instructors are incorporating partner work to add intensity, motivation and a sense of community. Prepare your class for success by teaming people up during the warmup. Below are a few full-body exercises that hit the upper body, lower body and core in a coordinated movement pattern. Before you start, get everyone in the “sidekick spirit” with these tips:
Cue participants to find a partner as they enter the room.

The Latest Yoga Research

By Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA | December 14, 2017 |

People are seeking yoga practice for health benefits, and science is documenting its effectiveness. In the United States, 9.5% of adults—about 21 million people—reported that they practiced yoga as a complementary health approach in 2012 (Clarke et al. 2015). Yoga practitioners noted greater health benefits than adults who tried other complementary health practices. Reasons cited for doing yoga included wanting greater wellness, feeling better emotionally, exercising more, eating better, and cutting back on alcohol and cigarettes. These objectives reveal a relationship between interest in yoga and a desire for healthy lifestyle habits (Stussman et al. 2015).
Ongoing research continues to reveal many associated health benefits. Here’s a snapshot of current research highlights and examples of practical applications.

Sample Class: A Tabata-Inspired Blast

By Lynne Skilton-Hayes | December 14, 2017 |

The high-intensity interval training wave is still cresting, thanks to its positive metabolic effects and its ability to elicit results. HIIT raises the anaerobic threshold and creates excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), or oxygen debt. Simply put, metabolism stays elevated for longer after an intense workout than it does after low-intensity exercise.
Tabata™—one of many HIIT protocols—alternates 20 seconds of very hard work with 10 seconds of all-out rest, repeated eight times for a 4-minute set. The metabolic workout presented here is inspired by the original concept, created by Izumi Tabata, and combines intense cardio with strength supersets, which serve as active rest.

Teach Clients the Smart Way to Move

By Terry Ferebee Eckmann, PhD | December 14, 2017 |

Clients want to see results, and you want this, too. However, you’re with them a limited number of hours per week; you have little control over what they do when they’re not with you. What if you could provide additional tools that would help people reach their physical goals while also helping them make new neural connections?

50 Ways to Cut Calories

By Len Kravitz, PhD | December 13, 2017 |

For the first time ever, overeating is a larger problem than starvation among the world’s overall population (Buchanan & Sheffield 2017). Losing weight—and, perhaps more importantly, not regaining it—is a challenge facing millions of people worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global obesity rates have nearly tripled since 1975. Further, 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight in 2016. Of these people, more than 650 million were obese (WHO 2017).

Cooking Hack—Not Your Mother’s Pressure Cooker

By Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD | December 13, 2017 |

If you’re anything like one of our editors, who has vivid memories of tomato sauce dripping from the kitchen ceiling after her mom’s 1970s pressure cooker exploded, you might be a little fearful of jumping on the pressure cooker bandwagon. But chances are good that, if you do, you won’t regret it (don’t worry—pressure cookers these days have safety valves to help prevent explosions). These kitchen contraptions are making a comeback due to their unmatched power to put a delicious dinner on the table in no time. Pressure cookers work by heating up food rapidly in a sealed pot.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans—What’s to Come?

By Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD | December 13, 2017 |

Every 5 years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. A scientific advisory committee is recruited and installed in the 2 years before the DGA are released. This committee reviews the nutrition literature and provides nonbinding recommendations to the federal government. The committee’s report is posted publicly and is open to public comment.

Gluten-Free for Life?

By Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD | December 13, 2017 |

The gluten-free movement leaves researchers, clinicians and nutrition professionals with many unanswered questions, especially how to best help those who do not have celiac disease—an autoimmune ailment linking gluten to severe intestinal damage—but experience similar symptoms.

Study: As Diet Quality Goes Up, Mortality Goes Down

By IDEA Authors | December 13, 2017 |

Latecomers to healthy eating experience a decreased risk of death compared to their peers who have persistently low diet quality, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In this study, researchers evaluated the association between 12-year changes in diet quality and the risk of mortality. Diet quality was rated based on how closely a person’s eating pattern resembled three of the healthiest eating plans: the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet and DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).

Join the Culinary Movement

By Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD | December 13, 2017 |

The best method for helping someone make healthier nutrition choices goes beyond providing nutrition education and reciting key points from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It includes helping people develop the skills needed to translate information into real life—that is, living the DGA.

Metabolic Health Versus Weight

By Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD | December 13, 2017 |

Despite more than a decade of intensive efforts to reverse the adult and childhood obesity crises, obesity remains widespread. Generally, the first treatment recommendation is to lose weight, but losing large amounts of weight and keeping it off is difficult, and possibly not even the best reflection of health improvements. After all, the number on a scale is just one measure of health.

Stay Tuned on Nutrition Label Updates

By Ryan Halvorson | December 13, 2017 |

The timing of nutrition label updates to include added sugars, among other changes, remains in flux as government officials offer differing timelines. As of press time, the official word is that you can expect to see the new labels on all products in January 2020, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Despite the delay, many food companies are still planning on rolling out updated labels by the original deadline of July 2018.