Fit and Female

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I Was Quoted Yesterday in The Daily Beast on The NYT Yoga Article

So much brouhaha about the recent NYT yoga article.  I weighed in with my views in a follow-up by The Daily Beast.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/10/yoga-instructors-push-back-at-new-york-times-article-on-injury-risk.html

Here's The Article I Wrote For Doctoroz.com

It's based on the apple and pear body shape segment I did with him that aired on Thursday.

 

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/breakthroughs-your-body-type

I was on Dr. Oz again this week doing a segment (2 parter) on body types...

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/biggest-body-breakthroughs-pt-2

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/biggest-body-breakthroughs-pt-3

 

 

The Death of Dummbells?

I was on NYC news channel NY1 today, featured in a story on why bodyweight training is so important.  The story is based on an article I wrote of our new "Q" blog called "The Death of Dumbbells".

The Death of Dumbbells? An Article I Wrote For The Equinox PT Newsletter

By Geralyn Coopersmith

In an age of technological innovation, fitness pros are going old school. It may seem counterintuitive, but numbered weight stacks, moveable seats and removable pins are increasingly taking a back seat to a decidedly low-tech sculpting apparatus: your body.

Selectorized machines (your classic circuit-training contraptions) were initially designed to idiot-proof exercises by preventing unwanted movements and forcing desired ones. The problem is that as they restrict our movements they hide our imbalances. This means that you can sometimes become stronger and more “fit” without ever addressing underlying physical compensations—which is a bit like building a perfect house on a flawed foundation. When we don’t address our limitations, we become vulnerable to overuse injuries and nagging aches and pains.

via www.equinox.com

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!

 
Wow -- it's a steamy here in the Northeast!!   Day after day the three Hs -- hazy, hot and humid.

As an exercise physiologist, I'm a big believer in the importance of working out consistently --  all year long.  That said, EVERYONE (even the most fit among us) needs to modify their workouts in extreme heat and humidity.  Especially, when the weather first turns steamy and you're not acclimatized. 

Heat illness is more than just feeling "a little uncomfortable" from the noon day rays -- it can literally be a matter of life and death.  Heat illnesses range from the relatively harmless "heat cramps", to heat fatigue, to heat exhaustion to the potentially-fatal, heat stroke.

The body cools itself in two primary ways:

• By increasing blood flow to the skin so that heat is dissipated away from the body's core to the skin's surface.
• By increasing sweat production, so that the evaporation of sweat off the skin's surface can cool the body.

Heat (particularly with humidity) and exercise both compete with the body's ability to regulate body temperature within safe levels. 

Exercise challenges the body by demanding blood for working muscles.  So now your skeletal muscles are crying out for blood (for oxygen, nutrients and the removal of waste) at the same time your body is trying to keep you cool by bringing the blood to the skin's surface.  On top of that, exercise generates its own heat which also needs to be removed from the body.

Humidity further exacerbates this problem, because if the air is already full of water vapor (as it is on a humid day) there is less room in the air to take up the sweat on your skin.  So it just clings to you -- rather than cooling you as it evaporates.

And guess what?  Your body is smarter than you are.  Effectively your brain tells your body, "Hold on, Body -- apparently, we've got an idiot running in the noon day heat and humidity, let's shut her down before she overloads the system!"   And you experience that as heat illness.

The signs of heat illness, include:

• Muscle cramps (particularly in the hands, feet or calves)
• Excessive thirst
• Agitation
• Drenching sweats with cold and clammy skin
• Headache
• Nausea
• Confusion
• Feeling faint
• Slower heart rate

Signs of heat stroke (which is a medical emergency requiring immediate 911 assistance) include:

• Rapid heart beat
• Nausea and vomiting
• Hot, flushed dry skin
• Decreased sweating
• Decreased urination and/or blood in the urine
• High body temperature (104-106 degrees F)
• Convulsions
• Loss of consciousness
• Shortness of breath

With heat illness (as with most things in life) an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  So here are some tips for beating the heat -- before it beats you:

• Allow your body a chance to acclimatize to heat.  It takes at least 4-7 days for your body to adjust to the change in temp and about 2 weeks to get used to working out in the heat.
• Drink plenty of water.  Be sure to drink at least 4 oz. of water every 15-20 min.  Don't rely on your thirst to let you know when you need water.
• Avoid alcohol.  It dehydrates you.
• Add some salt to your food.  Salt helps the body retain water.
• Workout smart.  Exercise in the cooler times of day, either early AM or later PM when the sun's going down.  Consider taking your normal outside workout indoors in the AC until the heat breaks, especially if you must workout at midday.  Pace yourself.  Do not expect to workout as hard as you normally would.  It's not realistic -- or safe!
• Wear clothes that breath and wick moisture away from your body.  Microfiber clothing such as Cool-Max, can really help draw your sweat towards your skin and allow it to evaporate more easily -- keeping you cooler.   Cotton can get soggy and hold moisture against the skin -- impeding the evaporation process.
• Consider working out in the water.  Swimming, water polo, water aerobics, even treading water are all good workouts that keep your core temperature down and can even be done in the heat of the day -- another great summertime alternative to pounding the pavement in the heat.

Geralyn Coopersmith is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer with over 20 years of professional experience.  She is the National Director of The Equinox Fitness Training Institute (EFTI) and the author of Fit and Female: The Perfect Fitness and Nutrition Game Plan for Your Unique Body Type.  She has appeared on The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show and The CBS Morning Show and she has been quoted in national magazines including: Elle, Shape, Self, Fitness, Health, More, Women's Health and many others.
 

 

 

 

One Nation, Overfed and Undernourished

I heard this phrase for the first time a few months ago while watching The Dr Oz Show.  It was said by a registered dietitian who was discussing the eating patterns of the morbidly obese.  I was struck by the power of the phrase & the sheer economy of words. 

Unfortunately, this phrase doesn't just apply to the morbidly obese.  It's also an accurate categorization of one of our nation's biggest health problems.   Specifically, that Americans are certainly, "well-fed" (i.e. not starving) but they don't eat "well".   Despite all this over consumption -- most of us are woefully undernourished.  

The fact is that there is very little nutritional value in most of the things we as a nation eat on any given day.

Consider that every year the average American eats:

•  29 lbs of French fries
•  23  lbs of pizza
•  24 lbs of ice cream
•  53 gallons of soda
•  24 lbs of artificial sweeteners
•  and 2.7 lbs of sodium (47% more than recommended)

Our bodies are designed to be fueled by "nutrient dense" foods.  Nutrient dense means that pretty much every calorie in whatever you're eating has value in fueling you for sustained energy and/or enhancing health & wellness. 

Unfortunately, more often than not food production in this country is about the systematic process of decreasing the nutritional value of food while increasing the number of calories in a given food while increasing its calorie count.  Hence the term "junk food".

The good news is that eating better doesn't have to be an overwhelming process.  It is really the result of making smarter choices every day -- one meal at a time.  Here are two rules that can help guide better food choices in almost any situation. 

1) Eat Close to Nature. The closer that any given food is to its natural source (i.e. being something you could identify as created by Mother Nature) the healthier it typically is for you.  The more production involved, typically the worse the nutritional bang for your caloric buck (i.e. calories added and nutrition removed).

2) Eat the Rainbow (I'm not talking about Skittles here).   When following Rule #1 try to eat food (fruits and veggies) with a wide variety of colors (particularly dark leafy greens and red/orange fruits and veggies).  Foods that are more vibrant in color tend to have better nutritional value.

Geralyn Coopersmith is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer with over 20 years of professional experience.  She is the National Director of The Equinox Fitness Training Institute (EFTI) and the author of Fit and Female: The Perfect Fitness and Nutrition Game Plan for Your Unique Body Type.  She has appeared on The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show and The CBS Morning Show and she has been quoted in national magazines including: Elle, Shape, Self, Fitness, Health, More, Women's Health and many others.
 

Walking Their Talk: Does Your Trainer Need To Be "Shredded"?

 
"How important is it that my trainer look like he/she is in shape?"

As a twenty year veteran of the fitness world it's a question I've heard asked on more than one occasion by fitness professionals and potential clients alike. 

Well, in a world where (for better or worse) Jillian Michaels is the most famous personal trainer on the planet and where most of our clients come to use wanting to improve their appearance -- I'd say it's pretty important. 

That said, maybe ten years ago (6 certifications and masters degree in exercise physiology in hand) I think I might have argued to the contrary, that knowledge is everything and there are plenty of idiots who look good but really don't know what they are doing. 

The thing is, the two aren't mutually exclusive.  There is no reason that fitness professionals shouldn't have BOTH -- brains AND an appearance that might suggest they actually use some of this stuff.  

Now, certainly I'm not saying everyone has to have a "perfect body" (whatever that is).  But I do think that anyone who wants a career getting other people in shape should look like they use "the product" themselves.  

It's a little like going to a fat cardiologist who's smoking and eating a cheeseburger during your consultation.  It would be a little hard to take his advice (however well-informed) seriously.  It's the proverbial "physician heal thyself".

Nobody underscored this fact more to me then Martin Rooney, famed strength and conditioning expert (who also happens to be shredded like a head of lettuce).

Several years ago, I sat in on one of his lectures as he called out an entire room full of personal trainers and strength coaches.  He opened his speech with a challenge.    His question was essentially, how many of the fitness professionals in the room would feel comfortable stripping down into something revealing (bathing suit or whatever) and showing our bodies to everyone. 

When very few hands went up he asked, "well, what do you guys do for a living?" and as if we weren't shamed enough "why isn't every hand in this room up?".  Coach Rooney was calling us out for the disconnect between what we do for a living, what we tell our clients -- and whether or not our own bodies are a reflection of that. 

Given what I do for a living, clearly I value education.  I honestly don't think you can be a good trainer without a whole lot of training under your belt.  You can't be an idiot and be a top-notch fitness pro.  But, there is also a lot to be said for someone who inspires their clients by walking their talk -- actually applying what they know and becoing a living embodiment of what they preach. 

While nobody is perfect, as trainers I think we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard if we want to be respected and taken seriously.

 

Geralyn Coopersmith is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer with over 20 years of professional experience.  She is the National Director of The Equinox Fitness Training Institute (EFTI) and the author of Fit and Female: The Perfect Fitness and Nutrition Game Plan for Your Unique Body Type.  She has appeared on The Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show and The CBS Morning Show and she has been quoted in national magazines including: Elle, Shape, Self, Fitness, Health, More, Women's Health and many others.

Want To Keep Those Fitness Resolutions in 2011?

Happy New Year!!!  Have you started your 2011 fitness program?  Well, there's no time like the present.

Whether you are just starting out or looking to take it to the next level here are some tips I wrote for HealthyStyleNY.com on how to stay with the program in the New Year.

http://tinyurl.com/GsNewYearsTips

My "Do It Right" Videos On Shape.com

I was recently asked to do a bunch of "Do It Right" videos for Shape.com's new website.   We shot about 30 and they'll be releasing them over the next few weeks.  Click here to check out the first batch.

 

My Latest Dr. Oz Segment Aired This Week

The good folks at Dr. Oz asked me to design a "saddlebag workout" for them recently.  The segment aired this past Wednesday with the entire audience getting into the act.

Keep in mind that no exercise will burn fat off of a particular body part.  Fat loss is the result of two things principally: 1) doing cardiovascular exercise most days of the week for at least 30 min and 2) watching your diet so that you're not eating more than you burn. 

Together these two things can help create "negative energy balance" which is the key to weight loss.  The resistance moves that I show in the segment will tone the muscles in these "problem areas" and can contribute to raising metabolism by increasing lean body tissue. 

Click here to view the segment.

Stories We Tell Ourselves About Who We Are -- Or Could Be

Mythologizing - A Guest Blog from Small Blue Pearls by my buddy, "Loo".

"Loo" and I recently reconnected after an almost 30 year separation (gotta love Facebook).  Back in junior high both of us detested anything physical, mostly because we thought we were more "artistic" types who couldn't be successful in that arena.  Ironically, now physical activity is a major part of both of our lives.

She shared this with me and I think it's so good I wanted to share it with all of you.

 

   

Loo on her bike: "No helmets! Not even on my baby brother! Ahhh, those laisse-faire 1970s"

 

 

I was the last kid in my grade to learn how to ride a bike.

Despite having a super-cool banana bike with tasseled handlebars and the classic thumb-operated byrngg-byrngg bell, I was terrified and wobbly and ashamed of myself. The grownups all threw their hands up in frustration. I somehow screwed up enough courage and learned after everyone had given up on me. And sure enough, it wasn't long before I was zooming around town on my bike (sans helmet) with all the rest of the kids, but I still carried that kernel of fear deep inside. And still do. Despite having logged hundreds of miles on two wheels since then, I'm still not 100% comfortable on a bike.

In the third grade a despicable gym teacher whose name I have blocked from memory decided to "teach" me how to dribble a basketball. I was having a hard time controlling it and I guess she'd had enough. So she had the whole class sit in the center of the gymnasium and made me dribble the ball around the perimeter three times. Zero instruction, just pure humiliation. I made it the three times around because I was stubborn even then, but I could barely see through the Niagara of tears I shed let alone master the skill of dribbling. The rest of the class sat in mute horror and pity, not one of them even remotely inclined to heckle. Several of the boys helpfully fetched the ball when it would roll away from me. As soon as this sadistic lesson was over I ran from the gym to the Principal's office where they phoned my Mom. She came and took me home for the day but not before lacing into anyone within earshot about child cruelty.

These two dramatic incidents certainly contributed to, but were definitely not the sole reason for, the creation of the myth that I'm unable to do anything requiring large motor skills.

My Mom inadvertently participated in it's creation as well. As kids, my siblings and I liked to color and draw and put on puppet plays. We were verbal and literate and artistic. We read constantly. She'd repeat like a mantra "you have fine motor control, none of us is any good at large motor control" by which she meant sports or anything athletic. I internalized this message well.

I now know that she was just trying to spare us the hurt and humiliation she'd suffered from not being "good" at sports. By letting us off the hook prematurely, we learned to disbelieve even our own senses that were telling us that just maybe this wasn't entirely true. We may not be Olympic material, but all of us possess a certain physical grace and coordination that makes us anything but ungainly. It's confidence that I lack. Not motor skills.

The strangest part is of course my Mom's own natural physical abilities. It wasn't until many years later that I found her awards for archery and shooting a rifle, or saw the home movies of her skating and skiing and snowshoeing. She was always physically active and still is. But she will tell you if you ask her that she is "bad" at anything to do with sports.

Creation myths are just that. Myths. And myths are not the truth. Ever. We all have at least one that we tell ourselves despite evidence to the contrary. We believe them because they help "explain" who we are and where we come from, they help identify who we "are" — long past the time when that is necessary or needed. Mine was that since I was "artistic" I was "bad" at athletics. In the world that I inhabited, there was an uncrossable border between those two worlds. You simply could not be good at both. If you were good at sports this would somehow detract from your status as an artist and since I was heavily invested in being seen as artistic it meant I had to shun anything physical to preserve my self-identity.

And so I had a hard time learning to balance on a bike, or dribble a basketball, or hit a softball, or run very far. I gave up before I began. I made my myth true.

I spent my entire pre-college school days creatively avoiding gym class but I would go play soccer with the neighborhood boys any chance I got. There were always cracks in the myth, always a part of me that never fully believed in it. As long as whatever it was I was doing was not officially sanctioned as "sport" I was fine and could play as well as any other kid.

I recently met up with an old friend from Junior High — one of my cohorts in gym-avoidance — who is now a personal trainer and heads up a national fitness chain's training program. We sat in a coffee shop in New York shaking our heads at the wasted years, both agreeing that adolescence would have been so much easier if we'd had a physical outlet. But we were young women right at the cusp after Title IX was passed to equalize girl's sports. Beyond gymnastics (terrifying!) and field hockey (unfeminine! crushed ankles!) there were few options available for us.

As I get on the mat each day, I know that a big part of the work I'm doing is rewriting this creation story, this myth about myself and who I am and what is true. Whole sections have to be scrapped. It's all up for grabs. And I believe that this is the essence of what Ashtanga is all about — by meeting ourselves on the mat each day doing the same thing each time, it allows us the space to take a hard look at who we think we are and hopefully allows us to discover just a little bit about who we may actually be.

Holiday-Proof Your Body With Moves I Demo-ed on The CBS Early Show

The little things we do around the holidays can add up to a lot of aches and pains. Here are some simple moves that I did last Tuesday on The CBS Morning Show in a segment on "Holiday-Proofing Your Body".

Check Out My ViPR Workout for Shape Magazine with Jenna from Glee!

I recently had the pleasure of taking the lovely Jenna Ushkowitz from Glee through her first ViPR workout. Lots of fun -- and lots of sweat!

My "60 Second Workout" On The Dr. Oz Show

Click here to view my segment on today's Dr. Oz Show.

They asked me to design a workout that could be done in 60 seconds. While 60 seconds alone won't do it, frequent breaks like this (every 30 min or hour) can help improve blood flow, wake up muscles and get us out of bad postures.