Fitness 909 Home Page

Fitness 909 Blog Home Page

Exercise Tips, Links to our New and Used Exercise and Gym Equipment for Sale

In the pages of our blog you can find interesting articles on exercise programs and new and used fitness equipment.

Looking for a treadmill but don't know where to start ? Read "Tips on Purchasing a Home Treadmill " it is full of great information on what to look for when purchasing a home or commercial treadmill. Not sure what is best for you read "Ellipticials Vs. Treadmills "

You will also find great articles on how diet and exercise go together when trying to lose inches. " Are You a Big Loser ? " or inspirational stories like " The Kirk Sandoval Story " .

If you are ready to purchase equipment you will find over 75 pages of great home or commercial treadmills, ellipticals, bikes and more. Were you will find great equipment like the Bodycraft TR1160 Home Treadmill or the Refurbished Precor 546i Commercial Elliptical .

Weather you are a gym owner or a home user you will features and specs on equipment you are interested in. On every page to will find a link to our main website Fitness 909 for even more information and purchasing.

Hopefully you will find our blog useful amd informative, and be sure to leave us your comments

If you Love Your Workout it may be time to change it

If you are regularly going to the gym and have been using the same work out program for a while, it is probably time to change it . Your body will learn an exercise program the same way that your brain learns things like this 2, 4, 6, ___ . You really didn't have to work out your brain very hard to come up with the next number 8. Although when you were first learning math it wasn't so easy.

If you feel that you have reached a plateau, and you are not getting the results that you are expecting, here are a few ways that you can change your work out :

• Use a different machine to work the same muscle

• Change the order that you go through your exercises

• Change the Weight and Reps --- You can use less weight and do more reps or you can use more weight and less reps

• Use Dumbbells and Olympic Free Weights instead of machines -- When you are exercising with free weights you are not only working your core muscle but all the little stabilizer muscles that you need to hold the weights steady. When you are using the machines you are not working these muscles.

• You might even think about changing the groups of exercises that you do each day. Instead of doing Chest, Back, Legs in a day you might want to do Arms , Back, Legs

• Once a week really do a heavy work out. Increase your weight and do less reps for your whole program

How often should you change your Program ?

If you are changing your program to fast you are not giving your muscles a chance to adapt to the work out and if you don't change it enough your muscles are getting lazy and need to start thinking again. So I would say at least every month you should change something in your program. Better yet change one exercise on your work out each week that you have been doing a month or more.

Last Note:

Remember that in different times of the year you are going to be doing different activities. For example in the winter time you might like to ski, so you should incorporate some exercises that work the muscles you use during skiing. Also during the summer you are outside more playing sports so you might want to change your cardio program to match your activity.

Good Luck,

Tony

Are You A Big Loser ?

Hopefully you are. If not what are you doing wrong ? Well like it said in my bio I ran gyms for over 12 years and have also sold home gym equipment at busybody for a few years, so I have seen my share of losers and non losers. Here are a few of the reasons I have observed for not having success :

1. Cardio - We have all been brought up with the concept that more is better. Not so when you are trying to lose body fat. While doing your cardio work out you will need to stay within your heart rate fat burning zone ( 220 - your age x 65% ). I see people that are trying to lose weight working their little hearts out and going as fast as they can for as long as they can. The problem is that they are burning muscle faster than they are burning fat. The reason is that when your body needs fuel that fast it will burn muscle before it will burn fat which is hard to do. When you burn muscle you are also lowering your metabolism which make it even harder for you to lose weight. Which brings up #2 reason.

2. Strength Training - There are 2 mistakes that people make when doing a strength work out to lose weight. When I asked people what their goals were when I was enrolling new member I would hear from mostly men that they wanted to build their Chest, Back, Arms and lose fat in their mid section. Yes these are great goals but you cannot do a weight gain and weight lost program at the same time. Some guys do the weight gain program first and have 6 pack abs that you cannot see under the 20 Lbs of fat they still have. Ladies ask for hip and thigh exercises to lose inches in these areas. Well the truth here is makes no difference what muscles you are working your body will burn fat in the reverse order you out it on. So the last place you put on the inches is the first place you are going to take it off.

3. If you are a 250 Lb person you would need to take in 2500 calories ( Add a 0 to 250 ) a day to maintain your 250 Lbs. If you take in more then 2500 calories you are going to gain weight, take in less and you are going to lose weight. I think that everybody knows this so what people like to do is drop from 2500 calories a day down to 1200. Yes this does work but 999 people out of 1000 can't stick to this diet for very long and certainly not a life time. This is how it is done

One of the first things I learned from Jack that losing weight is a 3 part program.

1. Proper Diet

2. Cardio Training

3. Strength Training

Diet -- As I said it is very hard to stick to a diet lower your intake 1000 calories per day but 500 is not that much. Very easy if you stay away from donuts, pie, Etc.

Cardio Training -- You can burn as much as 200 to 300 calories in a 45 minute work out

Strength Training -- You can increase your metabolism by gaining muscle on your body. The rule of thumb is for every pound of muscle you gain you will burn an extra 50 calories per day. This means that if you add 5 pounds of muscle on your body you will be burning 250 more calories a day. Even when you are sitting watching TV you are burning up more calories. Muscle weights more than fat, so as you lose fat and gain muscle your weight may not change but your pants or
dress size will.

Lets put it together. How do you lower your calorie intake from 2500 to 1500 a day

2500 Calories
- 500 Less Calories Taken in
- 250 Burned up in Cardio Work Out
- 250 Extra Calories burned up by increasing metabolism due to gaining 5 Lbs of Muscle
___________
1500 Calories Per Day

Remember this is something that you have to do and need to do for the rest of your life. You need to tell yourself that you are ready to do this . If you go out to sears and purchase a $399 treadmill and a $299 gym you are starting out all wrong and you will never become a loser. Get yourself good solid equipment, something that will last and work well for you. Also you have made a commitment by spenting the money.

Well I hope that I have helped you become a loser. Remember don't take short cuts you have to do all three parts to be successful .

Good Luck
Tony

Is your Health Club Wasting your Time, Energy, and Money ?

What has your gym done for you lately ?

Gyms these days are full of top brand equipment like Life Fitness, Bodymaster, Hammer, Cybex, Precor, Stairmaster etc. The equipment is much more advanced than it was just 10 years ago.

Well, I say what good is it if you don't know how to use it.

You see these TV ads that show an overweight person losing 20 to 30 Lbs in a few months and all you have to do is join and like magic you will lose the weight, reshape your body, meet the person of your dreams, and live happily ever after.

Well it is true you need to join a gym, but after you join 99.9% of us need help. What is a chest press or a low row machine ? How much weight do I use and how many times do I do it ? There is no one to ask unless you want to pay a personal trainer $50.00 an hour to show you. I can safely say that over 70% of members that join a gym are using the equipment improperly. Half of these members will drop out because they are not seeing the results they saw on TV. You would think that there would be a law, as part of the membership the gym would have to provide a least one instructor on the exercise floor at all times showing members how to use the equipment properly. At the price of memberships these days they can afford it. The reason they don't is that it would take away from their personal training business.

Way back in the late 60's Jack La Lanne and Vic Tanney started the first commercial gyms. The concept was to have people enroll into their gym and they would provide the equipment and show you how to use it.

I managed Jack La Lanne gyms for 12 years and the concept stayed the same. When we had a new person enroll they were assigned an instructor . On the new members first day we would record their body measurements and weight and set up realistic goals for the first 3 months.

We then set up a work out card for the member and took them through their first work out. The instructor would first demonstrate how to do the exercise properly than have the member do it. On each visit the member would come in pull his card from the A to Z file and hand it to their instructor. The instructor would sign the card and take the new member through the work out again.

This would go on till the instructor felt confident that the member was ready to go on their own. At that time the member still had to have their instructor sign them in each visit, and the instructor would now take the member though again on every 5Th visit to make an adjustment to the program. This normally went on for 3 months.

By this time the member has hit their first set of goals and is fully versed on how to use the equipment properly. A lot of our members were hired as instructors because of the training they received as members.

Back when I was running clubs we didn't have fancy TV commercials or newspaper ads to draw people in. Word of mouth was our way of advertising. A friend of one of our members would notice how good the member was looking and ask, " What have you been doing, you look great" the member would reply, "I have been exercising at Jack La Lannes" and bring that person in as a guest.

Well that was then and this is now. Being here in California and having Arnold Schwarzenegger as our governor, you would think that it would be a little different here today.

Most strength equipment these days has a placard on the machine to show you what muscle group the equipment is for and a picture on how to use it. It doesn't replace a instructor but it helps. Look for it the next time you work out

Well I got that off my chest. Good Luck
Tony