Timonium Personal Trainer

Neck and Shoulder Pain? Try this ... What you see above is what we call Thoracic Mobilization. Simply, we're trying to get the muscles of your upper back, shoulders, and neck to relax. In many cases, tightness in your neck and shoulder can come from lack of mobility in your thoracic spine (upper back). Here's what you do: - Take a tennis ball (lax ball if you're a veteran or extra brave) - Place it on the floor - Lie on top of the ball so that the ball is a couple of inches AWAY from your spine (that's where the tight muscles live). - If you have "issues" like our model, you may cradle your head in your hands. Your long range goal would be to get your head to the floor. - Now scooch around using as little effort as humanly possible (remember, we're trying to relax here) and try to find a spot that feels just a little sore. - Once you find a spot, hang out there for a few seconds and take a deep breath or two. - You can move on to a different spo

Cholesterol is not bad! Cholesterol is a structural component of cell membranes Cholesterol is necessary for the production of bile (which aids in the digestion of fat) Cholesterol is used to make vitamin D and certain hormones, like estrogen and testosterone More that 80% of the cholesterol currently in your bloodstream was made by your liver. Your body needs about 1000 mg of cholesterol a day. When you eat 200 mg of cholesterol (that's about 1 egg's worth), your body will produce another 800 mg or so. In short, your body prefers to stay within a small range. When you ingest more cholesterol, your liver slows down it's production of cholesterol. For most people, there is NO correlation between the amount of cholesterol that you eat versus the total cholesterol in your blood. However ... About 40% of people will have some small increase in both LDL and HDL (hence an increase in Total Chol.) that has been shown to have no influence on heart health. Some extremely

How to Get Toned Part of what's going on with what most women call "tone" is a thickening of connective tissue. Get just a little geeky with me for a sec and take a look at the above diagram of a cross-section of a muscle. Think of each "-mysium" as a sausage with a casing on the outside of it. (I can sense my physiology prof cringing right now.) Muscle fibers alone are soft and squishy like a chunk of ground beef. It's the casing (endomysium, perimysium, and epimysium) that makes muscles feel firm. Lifting weights is by far the most effective way to thicken and firm this casing. That's what makes your muscles look and feel "toned." Even more important ... Research shows that it takes a minimum weight of around 20RM for this "toning" to occur to any appreciable degree. 20RM is fancy strength coach talk for "20 Rep Max" or the amount of weight you could lift for exactly 20 (and no more) repetitions of a given exercis

Well of course this is an optical illusion. And, of course, the black circles are the same size. But how can this illusion help you lose as much as 18 pounds? Studies by professor Brian Wansink at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab show we tend to to serve ourselves in proportion to the plate size we're given. And because of the Delboeuf illusion (illustrated above), an appropriate serving of food that should be filling looks like it's not enough for you when it's served on a larger plate. So, you naturally eat more. Reducing plate size from 12 inches to 10 inches typically resulted in 22% fewer calories served. [Note, however, that once plate size dropped below 9.5 inches "people begin to realize they're tricking themselves and go back for seconds and thirds." - Wansink] The study predicted that using a 10 inch plate for a year could lead to a weight loss of 18 pounds for the average adult. Simple, huh? Give it a shot and let me know how you do. - St

As a diligent, loyal reader 😉, you may be thinking "The 30 grams of protein thing again??" Yes. It's that important. Eating at least 30 grams of protein (about 4 oz of chicken, for example) triggers the muscle rebuilding that keeps you "toned" and helps you recover from your workouts. Part of the "skinny-fat" syndrome that strikes post- and perimenopausal women comes from the loss of muscle. Of course I understand your goal isn't to get "bulky." But your goal should be to get back the muscle you've probably lost over the last 10-20 years. We do that with effective weight training (cute pastel dumbbells and skimpy rubber bands won't do) and sufficient protein. And current research shows people around our age may need as much as 50% more protein than we did when we were younger. So get your 30 grams of protein at each meal. (Yes, that includes breakfast!) If you need some guidance, give me a call at our Timonium personal

Simple Strength Training Programming Tip for You The headline promises “simple,” so I’ll make this as simple as possible. A couple of long-term clients were asking each other about the difference between Workout A and Workout B. Our strength training program uses what’s called an “A/B Split” – technically, an A/B Split with Daily Undulating Periodization, but I promised to keep this simple 😉 A/B Split, in general, just means you alternate between workouts – Workout A one time, then Workout B the next. What constitutes the difference between A and B can be virtually anything that makes sense phsiologically … It could be - Upper Body / Lower Body - Push / Pull - Heavy weights / Lighter weights - Long rest periods / Short rest periods, etc. After years of research and hands-on experience with hundreds of happy clients, I created the “1/2 Cross Body Split.” Here’s how it works: Workout A - Anterior Core - 1-leg Posterior Core - 1-arm Push - 2-leg Hip/Hamstring - 2-arm

There's a problem with what I call “TV Workouts.” As you may recall, I rejected offers from “NBC’s The Biggest Loser” [that’s the official name they insisted we use at ALL times] largely because I disagreed with the way they trained. It’s nonsensical, dangerous, and even unprofessional to give so much work to recently sedentary people. Not only do sedentary people need fewer exercises and fewer sets than they did on that show, they needed more rest. A lot more rest. But, alas, a properly designed program with contestants actually resting and recovering between exercises makes for a really boring “Reality” TV show. So, instead, they showed fatigued and flustered contestants dragging themselves from one exercise to the next with little or no rest at all. Viewers (including plenty of trainers) came to believe that this frenetic way of training was the way to go with everyone every time. The truth, however, is that progress comes in the recovery from the stimulus NOT from the