exercise mistakes

The Basics of Exercise Order

Posted on November 8, 2018 by LetlerFit

Do you find yourself slapping together different exercises and hoping it works out or even thinking it gave you the best workout ever? I know i’ve been there. Believe it or not there’s a science to exercise order and sadly enough I have yet to see any of the famous fitspos with 1M+ following use correct order.⠀
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Exercise order depends on recruitment goals and is a direct reflection of the energy system-tension relationship. ⠀
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Exercise your major muscles (primary) groups using your compound lifts first, move into unilateral exercises (secondary), and end with exercises that target your stabilizers (ancillary). You need your stabilizers for your compound lifts so avoid fatiguing them first. ⠀
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If you feel like you need help in every which way, I’ve got you! DM me or Email LetlerFit@gmail.com let me help you exercise correctly and effectively.⠀
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If you like creating your own workouts, but are curious to see how they can be tweaked or improved, I help with that as well!⠀
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Biagioli, Brian Dominick. Advanced Concepts of Personal Training. National Council on Strength and Fitness, 2012.

Learn more about the best online fitness program which includes comprehensive programs focused on shifting towards healthier eating habits, staying fit, and building a better booty. You’ll also find a variety of fitness apparel to help get you that extra motivation to take your goals to another level. Contact me today to learn more about the best fitness programs available to get your body in gear.

Obesity Beyond “Looks”

Posted on October 30, 2018October 30, 2018 by LetlerFit

Obesity leads to ⠀
-Systemic inflammation⠀
-Insulin Resistance⠀
-Disturbances in the secretion and function of adipokines⠀
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Not only does it create the aforementioned issues, but it puts you at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes (when your body struggles to utilize glucose and produce insulin, and/or it’s inability to act in response to insulin production). Did you know that 90% of all diabetes cases are type 2? Did you also know that this is potentially avoidable with lifestyle modifications?⠀
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Risk factors for developing diabetes include:⠀
-Certain Medication⠀
-Race⠀
-Hypertension⠀
-Stress⠀
-Age⠀
-Pregnancy⠀
-Family history (genetics) ⠀
-High Cholesterol⠀
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For every 500 kcal of energy expenditure per week that comes from exercise, the risk for type 2 diabetes is reduced by 6%.⠀
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Exercise also helps increase ones insulin sensitivity by improving carbohydrate metabolism and glucose tolerance from enhanced cellular uptake.

I challenge you to stop looking at obesity as someone who is “fat” and needs to lose weight to be “skinny” because that’s NOT the issue. The issue is HEALTH.⠀

Fitness Terms Commonly Misused

Posted on September 7, 2018 by LetlerFit

Let’s define some words that I see getting misused far too often:⠀
Coordination: Being able to harmoniously perform a movement or how well your body parts interact in order to accomplish a movement.⠀
Speed: Ability to move the body OVER A DISTANCE in a given time⠀
Agility: Your ability to change directions quickly or generate a rapid movement⠀
Balance: How well you disrupt the forces that can disrupt stability⠀

This is important because i see people confuse speed with agility or agility with coordination all of the time. Even other personal trainers. When we understand what words mean we can then gain better understanding of the exercises and their purpose

2018 Goal Tracking

Posted on March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 by LetlerFit

Have you walked into a gym lately? Remember what it looked like on January 1st? I haven’t had to wait for a platform, a piece of equipment, or a machine to open in weeks! It’s a bittersweet feeling. Sweet because I’m human and i’m selfish. I hate waiting for what i want to use to be open and i hate fighting for machines. Bitter because the fitness professional in me knows it’s because most people have given upon their fitness resolution.

This blog is for the ones who are about to throw in the towel. If you are almost at your goal, snap out of the lazy funk you are ALMOST there! If your goal seems a bit farther away. Re-do the goal! Break it down. If you are 10 pounds away, 15, 20 etc. break it in half. Set a time goal. Healthy, sustainable weightless occurs at .5-2lbs per week. Knowing this, set a date for when you want to hit that goal. Most importantly, remember WHY you made that goal.

Sometimes we struggle, lose motivation, but knowing we are in the rut and making the conscious decision to get out of the rut makes all of the difference.

7 Ways to Change Your Think About Exercising

Posted on November 6, 2017November 6, 2017 by LetlerFit

We’ve all heard the saying, 80% nutrition, 20% exercise, and 100% mindset. As cliche as it sounds, fitness really is a mindset. It’s not a chore, it’s something that should become a part of who we are.

We must stop thinking of exercise as a punishment for eating something bad. Far too often I hear “I need to burn off what I just ate.” or “I can’t get off the treadmill until I burn the 250 calories that were in the chocolate bar.” That is so wrong in so many different ways. Exercise is NOT a punishment, it is a BLESSING. We are not paralyzed, we are not confined to a wheel chair, we have the ability to MOVE, and therefore are blessed to be able to to exercise. Even then, we’ve all seen the para-olympic athletes…so even then many of the disability excuses become invalid. But I’m not here to talk about the minority.
Exercise is a part of life. The same way eating, sleeping, and working, are part of life exercise should be as well. We need to stop thinking about it as something on our “to do” list.
Exercising CORRECTLY, (I emphasize the word correctly because every time I walk into a gym I see a lot of people herniating discs, or torn meniscus in the making. Simple because people lack the proper education) allows us to grow old gracefully and with less aches and pains.
Exercise not only allows us to age more gracefully physiologically, but it also allows us to look better in the process…who doesn’t like to look better naked.
Exercise is FUN! Find a way that makes it fun for you, because we are all different some activities are more fun for some than others, so find what is fun for YOU.
Exercise energizes! Hate constantly feeling sluggish? Exercise allows us to have more energy throughout the day. Many people workout at night and then complain they could not sleep because they had so much energy, imagine if you did your workout first thing in the morning and started your day with all of that energy.
Exercise is point blank a MINDSET.

How does your mindset all you to make exercise a part of your lifestyle?

6 Factors That Affect The Effectiveness Of Any Workout

Posted on September 19, 2017 by LetlerFit

So many people think creating an exercise is just slapping exercises, reps, intervals, rest time, etc. together and it’s gold. Except that mentality is completely false…believe it or not there is a science to creating an effective workout. Here are my 6 simplified (emphasis on simplified) factors that affect the effectiveness of your workout.

Work:Rest Ratio: This ratio basically means the amount of time you are performing an exercises compared to the amount of time needed to recover correctly from the exercise during a workout. Did you know that when we exercise it triggers our body’s energy systems? For the purpose of keeping this blog simple I will be grouping ATP with our Phosphocreatine system, even though they are technically separate depending on training factors. So anyways we have our ATP-PC system which is any activity lasting up to 15 seconds, we have our anaerobic system which is activity lasting up to 90 seconds, and our aerobic system lasting greater than 90 seconds. Now, did you know that the correct rest interval is one of the MOST important factors of a workout? But how do you know how long you should rest? To start, look at the dominant energy system working based on how long your bout of exercise is. Typical recovery for the ATP-PC system is anywhere from 30-50 seconds, for our anaerobic system is 1-3 minutes, and for our aerobic system it is typically a 1:1 ratio. Again, this is a very basic run down, but I hope it helps to open up your eyes to one of the biggest mistakes people make in the gym without knowing it is one of the worst mistakes.
Muscle Groups: Ever had an instatrainer give you HEAVY deadlifts at the very end of you workout? Well, fire them! Again, exercise is not just “let me slap sh** together.” There is a method to the madness, that sadly only a handful of trainers these days understand. Again, for the sake of keeping it simple you work the larger muscle groups in compound exercises first and progress towards the unilateral exercises, isolation exercises, and smaller muscle group exercises. Meaning Squats, Deadlifts, and Bench press go first on your weight training days and THEN you add your lunges, romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls, push ups, bicep curls, etc.
Hydration: Dehydration can cause muscles to cramp, fainting, poor muscle recovery post workout, and more disaster. Before any exercise, especially in hot/humid environments it is crucial that you are well hydrated before, during, and after! Drink roughly 2-3c 1-2 hours before exercise, roughly 1c during, and 2-3c after your workout on top of your regular non exercise related hydration.
Rest: Rest days are vital! They allow your muscles to repair and grow! Overdoing exercise can put your body in a catabolic state (your body takes energy from muscles…thereby breaking muscle down). Even elite athletes get rest days! For the average person I recommend tops 3 days back to back of exercise before taking a 1 day rest.
Pre-Workout Fuel: If you don’t properly fuel up for you workout, how can you expect your body to have the proper energy it needs to perform the workout? Before a workout if you eat 2 hours to 90 minutes before have a solid healthy meal with protein, whole grains, and a healthy fat. If you can’t eat something until 60-30 minutes before your workout have something light! Like a peanut butter sandwich, a banana with peanut butter, etc. But having a carb and protein source is crucial!
Post Workout Fuel: Did you know exercise causes stress on the body? A stress our body is well equipped to recover from as long as it gets the energy it needs post workout to carry out its recovery process. If you are like me and cannot stomach a hardy meal post workout I drink a post workout shake. The important feature to my shake is it is NOT just protein. It also contains fast digesting carbohydrates. Many protein shakes on the market fail miserable because they offer less than 5 grams of carbohydrates post workout…when carbs are more important than the protein (both still important though!) The average person can refuel just fine with a 1:1 ration of protein and carbs, while a more advanced gym goer benefits from 1:2 protein and carb ratio…again this is the simplified rule of thumb….calculating based on body weight and exercise type can be a pain for someone who does not know how.

Hopefully this helps you tweak your current routine, even if it is a basic switch….leave the complicated applications to the knowledgeable trainers, coaches, etc. For the average gym goer do your best with the basic run down!

Not sure where to start and want a real fitness professional to guide you? Let me be your coach! fill out my starter questionnaire: here

8 Ways To Work Out With Your Everyday Schedule

Posted on September 4, 2017September 4, 2017 by LetlerFit

Life gets crazy. There’s school, work, kids, bills, and so many other unexpected occurrences that happen. At the end of the day it’s called life and we all live it, but the worst thing we can do is let life get the best of us and use life as an excuse to let yourself go. What is life without health? It sucks. You feel gross, you feel tired, you don’t function at full capacity. It’s time you put an end to letting life get in the way with these 8 tips

Get it out of the way in the early morning. Whether it’s 4am, 5am, or 6am. You get it out of the way and start your day feeling more energized than usual
Have a 1 hour lunch break? Eat a pre-workout snack before lunch, take 30 minutes of your lunch to get a quick workout in at the nearest park. Wipe yourself down and use the rest of the time to turn your lunch into a quick post workout meal. Not sure what to do? My Get LetlerFit in 30 Days program requires just yourself and all workouts are done in 30 minutes.
Go directly after work before getting home and settling down on the couch.
Workout at night if you’re a night owl like me, but just keep in mind this is one of the most difficult times to workout because you’re tired from the entire day, all you’re thinking about is your bed, and it’s really easy to let last minute things pop up and keep you from working out.
Get a knowledgeable Personal Trainer in person or online. When you make an appointment or have someone holding you accountable you tend to get it done. For online personalized training shoot me an email at LetlerFit@gmail.com
Find an accountability partner. I’ve said this numerous times throughout the existence of my blog. This is so important because when one person is dragging the other is the motivator.
Find something you enjoy. For me it’s weightlifting or HIIT. I look forward to my workouts, the ones that I dread tend to be the ones that get put on the back burner
Keep yourself accountable. Track your progress weekly, by weekly, or monthly! Take your measurements and pictures before work because once you start seeing progress a whole new load of motivation comes in.

Common Gym Mistake

Posted on January 11, 2017 by LetlerFit

One of the most common gym mistakes I see made is in the warm up. So many people have been taught or assume stretching is all the same, right? Wrong. There are actually 7 types of stretching methods:

ballistic stretching: using your body’s momentum to attempt to move a limb passed normal range of motion
active stretching: holding a stretching with no assistance from anything or anyone
static stretching: stretching a muscle the farthest it goes and then holding that position
passive stretching: also known as partner stretching, but it can also be stretching with the help of an apparatus
isometric stretching: a type of static stretching that uses no motion
dynamic stretching: consists of controlled lime swinging, not to be confused with ballistic stretching
PNF stretching: (proprioreceptive neuromuscular facilitation) It is not so much a stretch as it is a combination of isometric and passive stretching with the goal of achieving max states flexibility.

For the purpose of the article I am going to be emphasizing static and dynamic stretching.

Static stretching is what most people do to warm up, but it is actually one of the worst things you can do as it leaves you more prone to injury.

static stretching actually cools down your body temperature, yet the purpose of a warm up s to increase your body temperature and heat up your muscles in order to prevent injury.
unlike dynamic stretching, static stretching very VERY simply put tells your brain that your muscles will no longer really be needed to contract turning off those specific signals wishing the body
Given the above information, plus given the conclusions reached through scientific research, it is safe to say static stretching goes AFTER your workout or training as part of the cooling down process.

Before a workout you should be utilizing dynamic stretching in order to send the signal to your brain that the muscles will soon be needed to contract at a higher rate than normal and avoid potentially pulling a muscle or even worse.

If you’ve fallen victim to this common gym mistake, you aren’t the only one. People just don’t know, because not everyone studies or understands basic human physiology. Unfortunately, too many personal training certification courses do not even touch on this subject because they focus on more simple topics, so many trainers themselves don’t even know and I blame the curriculum and how easy it is to get your CPT. But anyways, now you know!

Remember Dynamic Stretching for warm ups and Static Stretching for cool downs!