By djbbizUFC on 12/19/2008 3:05 PM

I get asked a lot about joint pain and if the cause is due to exercise injury or from over-training. Overtraining comes from long-term lack of ability to recover properly. This may be due to too much training but it is really a recovery issue. The more acute version is called staleness which involves both psychological as well as physiological breakdown. Besides declining performance, the individual may often feel whole body pain or flu like symptoms including loss of appetite, indigestion, weight loss, or inability to sleep properly as well as chronic fatigue. These are all factors affecting your recovery.  Over-training occurs because...

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By djbbizUFC on 12/9/2008 11:51 AM

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It should be noted that constant long distance running for the sake of sport or meditation does not make it a pursuit of fitness nor does it optimize the performance of the sport.  For those who wish to gain the cerebral as well as physical benefits of exercise, the need for a well rounded approach to your training regimen are key to seeking what you desire.

Many athletes that I have met and worked with over the years considered themselves long distance runners.  These athletes were often long and lanky and lacked muscle...

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By djbbizUFC on 12/4/2008 11:00 PM

These are the 20 worst foods for you per Men's Health.  We here at UltraFit Clinic can think of about 500 more but this is a pretty good eye opener.  Number 16 was unnpublished in the digital addition so it is left out below:

 

20. Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips from McDonald's

(5 pieces) with creamy ranch sauce

830 calories

55 g fat (4.5 g trans fat)

48 g carbohydrates

19. Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo'd Power Smoothie (30 fl oz)

900 calories

10 g fat

183 g carbs (166 g sugar)

18. Pepperidge Farm Roasted Chicken Pot Pie (whole pie)

1,020 calories

64 g fat

86 g carbs

17. Ruby Tuesday Bella Turkey Burger

1,145 calories

71 g fat

56 g carbs

15. Macaroni Grill Double Macaroni 'n' Cheese

1,210 calories

62 g fat

3,450...

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By djbbizUFC on 12/4/2008 9:37 AM

Dieting is not what we practice here at UltraFit Clinic™.  Diet is a noun not a verb.  We don't diet, we have a lifelong way of eating that constitutes our "Diet".  The words we like to use are "nutritional program" to describe the mindful activities we deploy each day as we  eat for energy, life, recovery and for pleasure.  Yes, for pleasure!  Healthy eating does not have to be bland, dull or bad.  It is full of flavors, aromas and colors that keep you satisfied and looking forward to all your meals. Now some simple tips to make that happen:

 

1. Increase the amount of meals you eat to a minimum of 5-6 per day.  Do not increase the total amount of food, but reduce portion sizes and spread your daily intake over more meals and snacks. 2. Increase the amount of dietary fiber you consume by eating more...

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By djbbizUFC on 11/28/2008 8:43 PM

Image by Aylanah via Flickr



This question is easily answered with "eating habits".  You can workout all you want and leave the gym and begin chowing down on bad foods and reverse any internal gains you may have made.  In reality you can be overweight but fairly physically fit just not chemically fit.  In other words you may delay the onset of disease such as cardiovascular risk with exercise but you won't maximize the potential outcome if you eat poorly.  In addition you won't get the most out of your workouts.

To avoid this, follow some simple rules:

Must eat foods:



Fats...

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By djbbizUFC on 11/24/2008 5:44 PM

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You got your first workout in and as one client put it so eloquently, "I was so hungry that I was ready to gnaw my arm off on the way home..."  That about sums up the feeling you get after a high-intensity, energy-grabbing workout that is followed by the body seeking to replenish its spent energy.

Your post workout nutrition begins your very important recovery period.  We all have heard about insulin.  It is all the buzz in...

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By djbbizUFC on 11/20/2008 12:10 PM

A question I get asked all the time is what should I eat before I workout?  Way too often this question comes after someone has "bonked" during the warmup!  What is bonking you ask?  Ever see those triathlon or marathon runners trying to cross the line looking like they can barely walk?  Well, this is due to a total breakdown of nutrition and metabolism in the body as it has run out of fuel to use for energy expenditure.  It is not pretty but more often will manifest itself in a hypoglycemic state where the trainees blood sugar levels fall precipitously as they get into their routine.  Weakness and the shakes set in as the body is no longer...

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By djbbizUFC on 11/19/2008 11:16 PM

I want to give you a quick new way to think about the relationship between nutrition, exercise and disease. Just where does disease come from? Is the meaning of genetic defined as those things for which we have no control? Or can our environment influence how it manifests itself? The secret to reversing the progression of disease is to change the genetic expression of your genes. Everything that impacts our environment from nutrition, exercise and stress interacts with our genes which causes them to be “read” or expressed properly and healthfully or poorly and with disease causing results.

...

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By djbbizUFC on 11/18/2008 2:46 PM

I hear this all the time from personal trainers and their clients..."we are going to make a personal training program just for you..."  The reality is there are only so many exercises in the book and many of them overlap in their usefulness.  I have been training for over 30 years and I still do a lot of the same exercises now as I did then.  Why you ask?  Because when I started training in the 70's we only had free weights.  We did have one of the very first Universal machines but it was very limited in its use and not very well accepted at the health club I belonged to which had lots...

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By Head Trainer on 11/18/2008 11:15 AM

This is the opening of our Health and Fitness Blog.  Here I will attempt to feed you some health information, nutritional tips and tricks and scientific research on health and fitness as well as some educated opinions on the state of the industry and its practices.  I will try and use this blog to document regular questions posed by clients during our training sessions and to enhance your total health experience.