Health

Jan292016

The Ultimate Home Workout (No Equipment Necessary)

A month or so ago, we lost power to the house. There was absolutely no electricity and at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it was one of the coldest days you’ll find in LA. The fur-babies are used to adapting from the Boulder sub-zero climate but our cold-blooded python would have had a hard time surviving without his heat lamp. As a result, I got to enjoy a challenging but rewarding family experience. Without access to really anything except water and our library of books, I stayed in and let our snake hang out on my head all day. So what did I end up doing?

While I love supporting local businesses, I think that there is a growing divide between those who are handy and those who are not. DIYers are always willing to take risks and break something in the process while the vast majority of the population will call the maintenance man to change a lightbulb. I’m stuck somewhere between the two but on this day, I decided to go all out repairman. While it was nice to get a ton of chores done and leave the house in the best shape it has ever been in, I remembered something important.

Jan282016

Job Openings in the Swimming Industry

The American Swimming Coaches Association sent all of their coaches an email recently in an effort to try to fill some vacancies for Swim Outlet’s Fitter and Fast Tour. This project is top-notch and travels across the country to provide the highest quality clinics of swim instruction to anyone interested. It’s a huge benefit for experienced swimmers and beginners, and while it focuses on youth, coaches and whole community benefit from its presence.

Jan262016

Learn to Coach the Best Form of Exercise

Back in August, I saw that the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) was launching a new course to become a Certified Summer Swim Coach. For those of you who are unaware, summer swim teams can be so much different from your standard club or high school teams. The competitors can often be those who face one another in other more competitive seasons. They use this format to bridge the summer gap and stay in shape while working on and developing new skills.

For many, the level of commitment and attendance is insignificant in comparison to their other teams and as a result, the coach is faced with endless new challenges. Since swimming is such a competitive sport, you’re faced with going into meets with a fraction of your team. Often, that small group are your least experienced and skilled swimmers, but you have to make due because swim meet scoring can be tremendously one-sided, and that looks bad to say the least.

Jan242016

Why Holm vs Rousey is Not MMA vs Boxing

With the growing popularity of MMA and its personalities like Ronda Rousey, there have been more and more comparisons between it and other martial arts. Wrestling has been compared to boxing and someone always has to come out on top. Like in a contest, there has to be a winner in the eyes of the public. When Holly Holm defeated Ronda, it wasn’t really Holly vs Ronda in the eyes of many. They saw it as boxing vs MMA, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. In fact, it was Holly vs Ronda.

If you wanted to really break it down, it would be judo vs boxing, but Holly would be the first person to tell you that she’s a mixed martial artist now. While Ronda competed in the Olympics in judo, she also knows that one discipline is not enough to be champion nowadays so she also is a mixed martial artist. While the two have a strong background in one discipline, using that last fight as support in an argument between which is superior just isn’t enough.

Image source

Jan232016

Why Customer Service is ALWAYS Key

With the amount of competition in the world, especially our capitalist society, a single bad or good experience can make or break your opinion about something. When there are a hundred dog food brands, a thousand protein powders, and dozens of car brands, the tiniest things can impact your decisions. However, it’s easy to avoid developing negative feelings for many of those brands since their employees often aren’t selling you the products. You won’t be upset with Purina if the cashier at Petco has an attitude, although it could still give you a negative association with the brand.

A brand we haven’t had bad customer service with

Jan212016

LA Fit Expo 2016: What to Expect

As the LA Fit Expo is in just a few days and the Evolution Fitness Conference comes with it, tens of thousands of fitness enthusiasts and hundreds of fitness professionals will be walking through the doors of the convention center. The energy as high as everyone aims to meet their favorite social media celebrities, grab a picture to post online, and pick up some free shirt and supplement samples. It’s like a feeding frenzy but the positivity in the room is outstanding.

Organizations including POUND and many others take the stage to demo their newest and most challenging group training formats while vendors show off their most advanced products to date. It isn’t quite the same as IDEA, IHRSA, SCW Mania, or Perform Better, but the EFC still gives professionals the opportunity to learn from their peers and even gain some continuing education units in the process. All of this comes at reasonable rates if you can find parking.

Jan182016

Workout While You Drive!

Getting from Point A to Point B used to be a challenge of physical endurance and mental strength. If you’ve played the game The Oregon Trail, you can only imagine how fit you’d have to be in order to make it across the country. Nowadays, everyone tries to put in as little effort as possible, as we’re even moving closer to cars that drive themselves. While I’m not asking you to ford any rivers, it wouldn’t hurt to think about turning your daily commute into something a little bit more rigorous. Here are a few things to try differently:

Jan182016

Are Health and Fitness Magazines Worth Your Money?

We get asked every single day if this will work or that is the answer to all of their questions. People wanting to lose weight, build muscle and get stronger say that this person told me that and that person told me this but I’m not sure who to believe. Just the other night, I spent ten minutes answering some guy’s questions in a hot tub and most of that was damage control. I had to let him know that most of what he heard were nothing more than myths and misinformation.

Any teacher or instructor can tell you that it can be far more challenging and time-consuming to teach the right way to do something to someone who only knows how to do something the wrong way. To be clearer, it’s easier to make french fries from a potato instead of mashed potatoes. When I first started really taking my fitness (outside of sports and martial arts) seriously, I bought every magazine at the grocery store. If it had fitness, health, or muscle in the title, I was reading it front to back. My dream was to one day be on the cover of Men’s Health, but it isn’t anymore.

Jan182016

Walking Your Dog Might Be Saving Your Life

Today we stopped by No Kill Los Angeles, or NKLA, which is one of our favorite animal shelters. We adopted a 5-month old puppy from here in the past and have attended their super adoption event with the Best Friend’s Animal Society two years in a row. These two work together with other local animal rescues to try to save the lives of as many animals as possible, and we appreciate that effort. We’ve included pets countless times before in our posts for many reasons, including their positive effect on your mental and physical health.

Our precious baby

Jan092016

The Best Protein of 2016 [GIVEAWAY]

Is it really possible that I can make such a bold claim one week into the year? I haven’t even attended the Fit Expo, IDEA, IHRSA, or any of my other fitness conventions and I’m already sold on a new product? So, you’re probably wondering… what is it? Get to the point, right? Well, before I even get to that, I’m going to hype this up a little bit more and say that I think this will definitely be a contender for the best new supplement brand of 2016.