Join a Society of Strength

This is a post that I recently wrote for Society of Strength, a new organization trying to bring all strength sports together in one supportive group. The article is called “Defining Strength” and while you might read the post here, please visit Society of Strength after and look around! You never know what you might learn! Often I have seen individuals fall in love with powerlifting, strongman, Crossfit, and more. What’s even better is that more often that not, those individuals are not athletes but just average people who love the cooperative nature of those sports, as opposed to bodybuilding or some other disciplines that can be very lonely. Either way, your experience is what you make it! Read this and you’re already going to be one step closer to being hungry and fit!

Nov032015

Are You Working Out Hard Enough?

There are a few ways to measure whether you’re working hard or not. Well, there are a lot more than a few ways, but there are only so many that are relatively accurate. When it comes to exercise, the best way to measure progress is over time. We can watch our strength and conditioning grow as we can do more pull-ups or as we can see more abs in the mirror. As our mile time decreases and our lean muscle mass increases, we receive positive feedback from our body and it feels good. But what about during that painful workout? What can keep you going during the hard times?

Let’s go back to the first statement made in this post and reconsider the two most popular options. The first one is called perceived exertion, which basically makes you subjectively rate how hard you’re working on a scale of 1-10, or 1-20. It usually takes me a few minutes to explain it enough to your average fitness enthusiast before they get the general idea. It could take them weeks, months, or years at that point to fully understand it and apply it. It’s not reliable enough for most people. It’s too qualitative and not quantitative enough because of its subjectivity. So what is the second option?

Nov012015

What NASM’s Acquisition of AFAA Means Right Now

Yes, this is old news to most fitness professionals, but it came up in the office the other day and I realized that I never shared this with you! If you click on this link you will see that NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) and AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) are both listed on the same screen, on AFAA’s website nonetheless. Don’t be confused, AFAA has not acquired NASM; it’s actually the other way around. On this particular page, AFAA is offering a NASM Group Personal Training Online Workshop for $129, granting 7 AFAA CEUs. Essentially, you read a bit, watch some videos, and take a quiz that you need to pass in three attempts.

Image source: NASM

Oct302015

LA Residents: Workout with Hungry into 2016!

Every year since 2013, the Westside Family YMCA (in the Sawtelle neighborhood of West Los Angeles) has had a three-month program to help individuals make it through the most challenging time of year for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The holidays present all kinds of travel issues such as staying at hotels, going out to eat a lot, huge meals with your family where saying no might be impolite, and just overall craziness. In this chaos, it’s hard to maintain balance, but we know that consistency is the key to success. Whether you’re trying to gain muscle mass, cut body fat, or just become stronger, you need to have a realistic and smart nutrition and exercise plan to accomplish these goals.

Oct282015

Giveaway: Lululemon Bag from Phitt

It’s just two months away from the most wonderful time of the year, for us at least. What’s our favorite part of the last two weeks of the year? Giving, of course. Thus, we want to share this opportunity with you. Our friends over at Phitt are currently giving away an amazing Lululemon Gym-to-Win Duffel Bag. This bag runs about $150 and could be the perfect holiday present for yourself or someone else, so you might as well try.

Image Source: Phitt

Oct192015

Last Week or so in Pics

Still enjoying the new neighborhood

Oct092015

Storytelling Friday: Your First Ever Personal Training Client

Greetings from our new apartment! We promise we will get back to you on a regularly scheduled basis! But for now….we want to tell a story! In this video, Hungry tells the story of his very first personal training client way back in the day! It’s a fun story and he shares some lessons that he himself learned on that day. This is a short story so take some time to watch sometime today while you’re trying not to fall asleep at work!

Sometimes (most times) even personal trainers need trainers!

Oct062015

Did I Hit My Summer Goals?!

As summer comes to a close, so do my summer fitness goals! It’s been an incredibly busy summer (including a move and other travel), but I’ve been working hard on my goals. Like the true procrastinator I am, I got 2 out of 5 done within two days of my deadline. But I’m super proud of what I’ve accomplished. I haven’t set real fitness goals for myself in a while and it was amazing to do again.

Why do goals matter? Whether you’re a newbie or fitness vet, goals are important! You need something to strive towards, something to keep you honest. It’ll stop you from getting bored or not knowing what to do: it gives you direction. I want to keep creating goals so hopefully you will see goals come up every season! They will probably all have different themes. Like summer’s goals, for example, were all body weight based.

Anyhow, enough talk, onto my results!

Summer Fitness Goals:

-Goal #1: 20 consecutive push-ups

-Result #1 >> SUCCESS

Sep152015

How to Swim in Front of Large Crowds

This could be for anyone: it could be for you, your children, your parents, or your friends! It could be a child swim meet, it could be a swim-a-thon for a good cause, or maybe it’s a triathlon. What do these events mean? Besides being great athletic trials, these events mean there will be lots of people around! This could completely throw people off. In this video, we tell you how to get past worrying about swimming in front of large crowds.

Sep112015

How to Get Better at Push-Ups

Just like pull-ups, push-ups can be a really tough point for most people (especially females who aren’t used to strength training). However, you can get there! As you may know, one of my summer goals is to be able to do 20 consecutive push-ups. And I am already at 14! I really hope to be able to finish my goal by the end of October, and I think I can do it! It’s all about practice. And what are you trying to practice exactly to reach multiple push-ups? Muscle endurance!

Those major and minor pectorals need to build up their endurance if you want them to be able to carry you through twenty repetitions of full body-weight! I’ve built a few different workouts, but here are some exercises that will help you get there. Remember, to build muscle endurance, you want to do at least 12 reps for each set.