MORE THAN JUST A WALK IN THE PARK – NEVER SAY “PHOOEY” TO FITNESS

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Walk in the Park

Some people think exercise couldn’t be more boring than just walking or getting on a treadmill going nowhere. Well, exercise is nowhere like that. You’ve got choices. More choices than a Taj Mahal of ice cream flavors or the bizarre choices of donuts today. Below are just some of the alternatives:

  • Tai Chi or yoga
  • Zumba or dance. Street up your moves with a hip hop class. No one is watching you anyway.
  • Skating- blades or wheels…whichever
  • Water skiing
  • Baseball, football, any kind of ball including kettle. Just have a ball.
  • Tennis or racquet sports (run to avoid being hit by flying racquets of poor sports
  • Hills, mountains, inclines
  • Canoeing, kayaking, rowing
  • Skiing /snowboarding
  • Hockey
  • Soccer
  • Biking
  • Sword fighting (preferably non-lethal)
  • Martial arts (black belt optional)
  • Running
  • Boxing
  • Any kind of “athalons”
  • Exercise bands
  • Jump-like-crazy Mick Jagger moves

Be creative. Fitness involves increased focus and imagination. And yes, even fun.

THE GYM WHIM

Of course, if it’s not walking, the first thing people think is “I’ll join a gym and go 20 times a week and a trainer will guide me through the machines and give me a schedule for the 100 different classes they offer and they’ll convince me that shelling out as much as $5000 a year is the very best thing for my health and I’ll lose weight and get glutes and perk up my posterior and save myself from dropping dead from a heart attack all in a funky fun environment with      sonic soundtracks attacking my senses.  Fact is, January hits, and gym memberships soar. People will pay top prices, thinking the more they pay, the greater the chance they’ll stick with it. No chance. Gung-ho quickly skids into “oh no” by mid-February. But you’re stuck in a contract. Total consumers joining gyms top 63 million. More than 34,000 U.S. clubs generate $24.2 billion in revenue. Close to 67% of people with gym memberships never use them. It’s what gym owners count on, insanely salivating over their extreme good fortune.

And then there are the one-on-one personal trainers who promise one-on-one results (they’ll even come to your house) They get paid the price of buying a small country, too. And guess what? Surprise. People start…then stop, still left to foot the bill.

Oh, and how could we forget? Home gyms. People turning their man or woman caves into sanctuaries of health. They don’t go to the gyms. They bring the gyms to them. Along with the machines they won’t use there, either. Stop and recognize the red flags flying before you sign anything.

FUN BARRE NONE

Every day a new kind of class is popping up across the country. Gym owner brainchildren are pumping up their how-can-I keep-workout-masochists coming minds and coming up with some classes you wouldn’t believe. Here’s a few:

POUND–  a full-body cardio workout that uses lightly weighted “drumsticks” called ripstix (probably with the promise of ripped abs)

ANIMAL FLOW– this taps into your primal instincts to get your body moving in ways you’ve never imagined before-expect a lot of growling and howling

POLE CONTROL– those hip-to-strip poles have come back from the dead years after Demi Moore in Striptease

ROPES GONE WILD– this involves creating wave-like patterns in long ropes with your body

SURFSET CLASSIC– pop up beach-like pain on the RipSurfer X, a machine that looks like a real surfboard –at least no sharks

DEEP EXTREME– yoga mixed with tribal dance

BARRE BRAWL– kickboxing-meets-barre routine that will earn you a knockout body if you can stand long enough for it not to knock you out first

BOKWA– based on the alphabet. You’ll draw letters and numbers with your feet while performing a calorie-torching cardio routine

PILOXING– blends standing Pilates with boxing and dance moves (can a body bend that way?)

BODY BLADE– a futuristic looking tool using vibration

PARKOUR–  basically the fitness equivalent of those gravity-defying movie stunts when the hero leaps between buildings, runs through alleyways, and scales up walls

“No…” you’re thinking. “Yes”.  There’s nothing to think about. Fitness has moved light years beyond funk. And fitness is far flung. You’ll find feisty foreigners and locals working out as much as we do in Tokyo, Thailand, Ukraine, Uganda, Milan, Peru, Rio de Janeiro, Edinburgh, Philippines… spin a virtual globe, stop anywhere and follow the heavy breathing.  It’s there.

HOME BODIES CAN BE HOT

Dumping the home gym option in the dust, there are other ways to fit fitness into your life in the absence of sweat and spandex

  • Set up a circuit training route in front of your TV
  • Do lunges while you watch TV. You can do lunges in place or walking lunges around the room while your shows are on
  • Walk in place as you catch up on your favorite show
  • See how many squats you can do
  • Watch exercise shows on TV and move along with them. UTube has gobs of them.

Switch it up and the real switch just might be you sticking with it.

EXERCISE TIPS AND TIDBITS                                                    

  • The point of joining a gym is to show up
  • Diddly squats don’t count as exercise
  • Kim K’s booty is not a rational goal
  • When it comes to 6-packs, even a half is an improvement
  • Ripping open the mail doesn’t count as getting ripped
  • “Strenuous” doesn’t mean thinking hard about whether to exercise
  • Think buns of steel vs cinnamon buns
  • You don’t need a body capable of posting naked selfies
  • Stomach crunches trump the crunching of a mouthful of chips going down
  • If you aim to get in shape, that shape shouldn’t be round and fluffy
  • Heavy breathing shouldn’t be confined to sex
  • Lifts don’t refer to beers
  • If machines scare you, you’ve watched the Matrix too many times
  • Consider bikes life cycles
  • Clothes don’t make the athlete

REPS DON’T MEAN REPEATEDLY GIVING UP

How hard is it to put one foot in front of the other? (Standing.)

Finding the right workout starts with the right mindset. If you want to stoke the fat-burning and health-inducing fires, you have to light a fire under yourself. Excuse is not an exercise. You have to get a program and be active sticking to it or getting stuck. (You’d be amazed at the amount of quicksand hiding around). Who hasn’t heard “Just Do It?” Well don’t “Just Over-Do it.” Take it a bit further and “Just Do It more.”

Exercise…reeeeee-peat. And reeeeee-peat. And, oh you probably get it by now.

PUT SOME MUSCLE IN YOUR HORMONES

RESEARCHERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY GIVE A LOT OF WEIGHT TO THE DAMAGE UNBALANCED HORMONES CAN DO TO YOUR BODY. BUT DON’T SWEAT IT. NO ONE CAN COMPETE WITH DR. STEPHEN A. GOLDSTEIN, M.D, F.A.C.S. AT DENVER HORMONE HEALTH IN HELPING RESTORE YOUR HORMONE BALANCE TO PRIME CONDITION. WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE HE’S EXPERT AT DIAGNOSING WHAT’S BRINGING YOU DOWN AND CREATES A UNIQUE TREATMENT PROGRAM TO GET YOUR BODY (AND PEACE OF MIND) AT PEAK PERFORMANCE.

CALL FOR AN APPOINTMENT NOW. AND MAKE YOUR WORKOUTS WORK FOR YOU.