FitMethod

While browsing CNN’s website, I ran across an article within their health section about the personal trainers of celebrities. Actually, the article is not so much about them, but rather how celebrities train to stay in good shape. The author makes the following point and reinforces it throughout the entire article: celebrities have to work just as hard as everyone else to stay fit. What I found most interesting about the article was a section towards the bottom in which five different celebrity trainers talk about their training methods:

Valerie Waters
Training philosophy: “Get in, get out, get a life.” Waters’ workouts last less than an hour, incorporating circuit training with weights and a “kitchen purge” to clear out bad food which she replaces with healthy options.
Best tip: “Don’t be afraid of weights. They’re the quickest way to change your body”

Gunnar Peterson
Training philosophy: Peterson creates different workouts for different clients every day. He has clients eat protein early in the day, making breakfast the largest meal and dinner the smallest.
Best tip: “Get on a regular routine. Exercise should be a cornerstone of your life, like brushing your teeth. It’s not even an option to blow it off.”

Ashley Borden
Training philosophy: As one of Karl List’s master trainers, Borden focuses on mio-fascial release, or deep tissue stretching; biomechanics with resistance and balance exercises; cardio, proper water intake and diet. She suggests drinking 100 ounces or water a day and gives her clients cardio homework, which they track using a heart rate monitor.
Best tip: Take care of the arches in your feet. “When your arches collapse, your knees rotate inward, and your hips rotate outward giving you a saddlebag appearance. It then pulls your sternum down, it pulls your neck forward, and everything collapses.” She suggests orthotics and mio-fascial release to combat chronic pain and posture problems.

Michael George
Training philosophy: George varies his workouts to keep clients engaged. He borrows from Eastern and Western philosophies, using martial arts, yoga, Pilates and meditation in conjunction with strength training. He saves time by using multiple muscle groups in each exercise, like a squat with a bicep curl. He also incorporates pliometrics and core boards.
Best tip: Don’t wait too long to integrate a healthy diet and consistent exercise into your days. “I’ve seen a lot of people come to me when it’s a little bit too late,” he said, “I’ve had [clients] pass away due to illnesses, cancer, heart disease, whatever it may be. The time is now. If you don’t put your health first you’re never really going to truly be happy.”

Bob Greene
Training philosophy: Greene tries to look at the entire individual and get clients to visualize how doing all the exercises he suggests will improve their lives. He says the physical benefits are almost meaningless if they don’t translate to “you having a better life overall … especially those areas not related to fitness.”
Best tip: “First thing is, know what you want,” Greene said. He said a lot of people want to work out because it’s “in” or they know they should be doing it, but don’t have a specific goal. “Know the reason you are making these changes in your habits, what is it you really want to achieve.” He also said most people need to do both weight training and cardio.

If you pay attention, you can see that there is a trend among all of the training styles. They all are centered around balanced and intense totalbody workouts. As I have mentioned in other posts, that is the best way to get and stay into shape. Workouts should stimulate the body aerobically and anaerobically. The goal is to burn fat while building lean muscle. For that reason, the exercise of the week that I choose to upload on this blog are ones that are challenging and force your body to use its muscles in a variety of different ways.

So now that you have an idea of how the celebrities train, change your workouts habits if you want to obtain similar results.

Today as I was going about my daily habit of reading various fitness blogs, I stumbled upon the following blog, Quadrathon. The blog is written by an endurance athlete who talks about their training. What caught my attention was a recent post about an injury that the author has sustained:

I had a long consult with my Physical Therapist on Monday; essentially I have; through running with insufficient cross training, unbalanced my quadriceps with my hamstrings. My IT Band is so tight it is pulling my kneecap off alignment by about 40 degrees. The good new is that all is not lost. Initial treatment consists of ultra-sounding the afflicted areas and a series of stretches that I have to run through three times a day, this I have been told will be followed by strength training.

As an avid runner, I can tell you that finding out that you won’t be allowed to run for a very long time is devastating news. Though that sucks for the author, it reinforces what I have mentioned in previous posts. Stretching and resistance training are crucial components for any athletes (including endurance athletes). The body takes a beating when it’s being pushed past its comfort zone, so it’s necessary to properly take care of it. Resistance training is vital to keep it strong and stretching keeps it flexible (lack of flexibility leads to overtightness and injury).

Unfortunately, there is a misconception about strength training. There is the belief that it is only useful for bulking up. That is not the case. Resistance training and stretching are both necessary to achieve a proper level of fitness which would allow the body to perform better with little risk of injury. It is dissappointing to hear about people such as Quadrathon sustaining injuries which they could have prevented. However, it serves as a warning to others.