So now it’s time to rock! No more lazing around, waiting for the next mimosa and game of croquet. Now you can take some valuable time to totally rock your body!

Now, that doesn’t mean your brain has to snap and you have to spend every waking hour in the gym to get into real shape for next summer. But here are a few tips to take with you, regardless of how much time you have. Incorporate these ideas into your workout and the world is your oyster……..

1. Time to change it up!
Have you been doing the same workout since 1998? Hey, its awesome that it makes you happy. If it is making you happy, then you are probably headed down the right road. However, if it’s not making you happy, it is time to switch it up. Take a new class, try a trainer for a session or two, borrow your friends fitness DVDs……ANYTHING……but get your brain involved again. If you are just going through the motions, your body isn’t going to change. You have to be involved!

2. Stay outdoors
It ain’t over til it’s over. Just because its September doesn’t mean you have to stop going outside. Throw on a sweatshirt (if that’s even necessary) and get active outside. Odds are, your friends will be around on weekends now……make a grown up playdate and burn off some August calories.

3. Focus on your form
Yes, your exertion level is important, you want to challenge yourself. But consider proper form a challenge unto itself. Think of your body like a beautifully designed work of archetecture: if the structure isn’t balanced, it doesn’t matter how strong the steel is, that baby is coming down. That lack of balance will lead to injury and breakdown. Head it off at the pass: make sure you know what your doing and how to do it properly.

4. Don’t overdo it
Sure, I’m getting you all psyched up, but pace yourself. IF you fire yourself out of the fitness canon, odds are you will hit a very solid and very painful wall from over-training. Hit that wall and it is going to be very difficult to psyche yourself up again to get started. Start gradually and slowly increase your exertion level two weeks at a time.

5. You are what you eat
You’re getting back to the gym and that’s great, but keep in mind the habits you may have developed over the summer: the BBQ, the alcohol, the cakes, the sweets. No matter how much you exercise, you can’t expect to see real change unless you start to watch the way you eat. You don’t have to starve yourself, but you do have to make smart choices. Not sure if you know what the smart choices are? Ok, quick quiz…….Twinkie or an apple?

I thought so.

Remember, if you have any questions, let us know. No point wandering around all frustrated and confused, right?

Rock on!!

The fabulous Tuesday night Pilates in the Park class has been extended through the end of September. Join us Tuesday nights at 7pm on the lawn in the Pier One Park, right at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge! It’s the perfect setting for the best Mat Class in Brooklyn.

And it’s free!!

We rule!!

Here is the first episode of “Eating Well with Michael and Elle”. Our intrepid hosts take us on the journey of a lifetime: the creation of a home cooked chicken nugget.

Take one and pass it on………

Be forewarned: there are adult language and adult themes in this video.

And Dylan McDermott………

…….as you have never seen him before…….

A recent study in Norway found that moderate wine drinking among women results in better cognitive function. The Tromso Study followed 5033 men and women, all 58 and older and stroke-free, over 7 years and found that there was a lower risk of poor test scores among women who drank wine 4 or more times over a two period relative to women who had less than one drink. The researchers also noted the not drinking resulted in significantly lower test scores. Also, associations between other risk factors and lower scores was also seen, including lower testing scores among people who were older, less educated, smokers, and those with depression, diabetes, or hypertension.

While the study did take into account such factors as age, education, weight, depression, and cardiovascular disease, other factors, such as diet, income and profession, were not addressed.

This isn’t the first time a study like this has come to the same conclusion: over the last three decades, a total of 68 studies involving 145,308 individuals have found this correlation between moderate drinking and cognitive function.

Which leads us to ask: what exactly do you mean by moderate?

Next up, how watching eight hours of football weekly will make men smarter and more handsome……….

Cheers!

But also raising questions is exactly how to deal with the injury. Surgery has always been an option. For years, the surgery was brutal and invasive, but has recently become less so with the advent of arthroscopic surgery. Doctors may try to replace the ligament with bits of ligament from elsewhere on the patient or with the ligaments of cadavers.

I know, I know, nice right? Ok, I’m moving on.

Rehabilitation has always been part of the process but usually after surgery.

In a July issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from Lund University in Sweden published a study. In the study, they took two groups of people with acute ACL injuries. The first group had immediate reconstructive surgery followed by physical therapy. The second group had physical therapy immediately followed by optional surgery if needed. They scored the two groups with the KOOS scale: Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS)–pain, symptoms, function in sports and recreation, and knee-related quality of life, with a range of scores from 0 [worst] to 100 [best]. What they found was that there was no significant difference in the improvement level of either group. Both scored just below 40. However, the treatment given the second group substantially cut down on the number of reconstructive surgeries they need to perform.

Interesting, right?

I have always been a big believer in strengthen the entire leg to improve the integrity of all the joints. I am not a doctor, just a humble, country fitness guru, but I have found that the majority of people with knee problems have had weak inner and/hamstring muscles relative to the strength of their quadriceps (big ol’ thigh muscles). Whenever there is a physical imbalance like that, it is not often the question of if there will be an injury, but when there will be one. And if surgery is simply going to repair the area but not strengthen the supporting muscles, the patient is simply being set up to get knocked back down again.

That ain’t right.

So what do you do? Make sure that your lower body workouts include all the muscle groups, not just the quadriceps. Not sure how to do that? Again, this is where an educated trainer comes in handy. They should be able to access the imbalances and plan a program for you accordingly. In the meantime, check out this video about strengthen the knee. It’s quick and pretty informative.

Rock on!!!

For those of you with less of an attention span, the action begins at 1:15.

Both studies took a look at the importance of infancy on obesity in adults. As I have mentioned, and as I am sure you know, the obesity epidemic continues to climb, with the new numbers released last week showing that over 30% of the residents in nine states are obesity– much higher figures than just ten years ago. Doctors, scientists and fitness gurus are all trying to figure out what can be done to stem the tide of unhealthy weight gain.

According to the Yale University study, an individual’s weight is set in the brain before birth. In other words, our size is being wired into our brains in utero. For many people, portions of the brain that would trigger satiety are just not firing properly, causing those individuals to eat more.

“It appears that this base wiring of the brain is a determinant of one’s vulnerability to develop obesity,” said Tamas Horvath, chair and professor of comparative medicine and professor of neurobiology and obstetrics & gynecology at Yale School of Medicine, who is also co-director of the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. “These observations add to the argument that it is less about personal will that makes a difference in becoming obese, and, it is more related to the connections that emerge in our brain during development.”

Horvath also mentions that this cerebral wiring leads to other problems. “Those who are vulnerable to diet-induced obesity also develop a brain inflammation, while those who are resistant, do not,” he said. “This emerging inflammatory response in the brain may also explain why those who once developed obesity have a harder time losing weight.”

Meanwhile, over at Columbia, researchers studying births over a period of 14 years (and over a half a million births) found that babies who were heavier at birth were much more likely to become obese adults. The researchers worked with the premise that a healthy weight increase while pregnant was about 18-22 pounds. As the expectant mothers would put on more weight, so too grew the chances that the baby would be large, with the likelihood one and a half times with a gain of 40 pounds and more than doubled with a gain of 52 pounds.

“These are the most important nine months of life from the standpoint of development,” said Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston. “Our cells, tissues, even brain structures are being formed and fine-tuned so that having too high blood sugar and other abnormal metabolic influences can affect that infant not just at the moment but potentially throughout life.

“For an adult to gain an extra 10 pounds and then maybe lose it doesn’t cause permanent changes in that individual’s biology,” Ludwig said. “But, for a fetus to gain too much weight during key [moments] may permanently alter the brain circuits that affect appetite and metabolism, fat tissues or other parts of the body that have a permanent role in body weight regulation.”

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health– My friend, Donny Guns, our local weight-loss-muscle-packing-surfer-in-NY dude, turned me onto this book. It almost immediately made him go ultra-orthodox vegan. A fascinating study of the effects of nutrition on the population.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals– This book delightfully confused the hell out of me, and I don’t think I was able to eat without a great deal of forethought for weeks afterward. But Pollen’s delivery is never over the top and it makes for a very quick and interesting read.

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto– Pollen’s follow up to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, this book gives a rough and tumble look at the Western diet (such as it is) as well as the food industry as a whole.

So kick back with a couple of margaritas and some BBQ and have a terrific read!!

Rock on!