What are the...
5 Basics of Health?
Movement
As a personal trainer this one's obvious, but its more than just working out. We break up movement into four categories: resistance training, cardiovascular training, functional training, and daily activity. While programming traditionally looks like a regular workout plan, and we are no exception, we also include overall movement goals based on these four categories that may not be in a regular workout plan. Daily activity makes the biggest difference in whether your body will change according to the stimulus of increased/changed movement. Simply put: your body responds most to what you do CONSISTENTLY. Therefore, we aim to incorporate movement changes throughout your day as well as in your workouts.
Food
Food is another obvious one. We need to eat to survive. Moreover, food impacts our physical health, as well as our mental and emotional well-being due to its indirect impact on the brain. The various nutritional elements in our food will seep into hormone secretion throughout the body, and therefore impact our central nervous system. As such, we focus on incorporating quality foods over food restriction to ensure long term application and reduce the chances of "falling off track" with the nutritional changes that we so often see. Just like with movement, CONSISTENCY is KING with how our body responds to food. If we change up our overall diet too much, our body will struggle to respond as well than if we stick to a certain dietary plan for a longer duration period.
Water
Water is responsible for a TON of our physiological functions. It makes up a large portion of our blood volume to perform various tasks such as carrying nutrients to cells, get rid of waste and protect joints and organs. It is a part of our spinal fluid, mucus, saliva, sweat, tears; basically, its everywhere. As such, dehydration can cause a series of problems for our bodies, and yet several individuals drink anything BUT water and other hydrating fluids. Dehydration can come from 1 of 2 issues generally--insufficient water consumption, and insufficient water absorption. The latter has more to do with electrolytes in the body. Often enough, rather than increased water intake, one would need to supplement electrolytes or eat more salt to help your body to absorb water. We incorporate a daily fluid intake goal to ensure our clients are properly hydrated, their recovery processes and body are receiving their nutrients, and the muscles and joints within the body are properly lubricated, Exercise is meant to work up a sweat. Its training. We take hydration very seriously for the safety of our clientele.
Sunlight
While sunlight is important for many different reasons, we place our focus on 2: Vitamin D and sleep patterns. Vitamin D works with calcium to protect our bones, it influences various metabolic processes, reduces inflammation, the list goes on. Particularly clients with degenerative bones or discs, arthritis, and various bodily aches and pains, we recommend being outdoors for a specific amount of time according to the client, and to confer with their doctors about possible supplements if their vitamin D or calcium counts are low. Sleep patterns tend to regulate with the sun. It's imbedded into our physiology to wake up with the sun, and sleep with the sun. As such, going outside can help regulate our "inner clock", or circadian rhythm, and improve our quality of sleep. We have seen clients feel almost immediate effects of just being outside for 10 minutes when they wake up; they have more energy, they're more productive, they're sleeping better, they're mood improves, and they perform better cognitively.
Sleep
Believe it or not, there's a lot the experts still don't know or understand about sleep. One thing that's evident, is how much we need it. We go through 4 stages of sleep, and each play a critical role in our mind and body's RECOVERY PROCESS. Recovery is crucial in fitness, and in overall healthcare. You can train and break down all the muscle you want, nothing will change if it is not properly recovered so that your body may BUILD more muscle. More than that, your energy levels, metabolism, bodily cues, memory, cognition, physical performance, emotional and hormone regulation and SO MUCH MORE are influenced by the amount of sleep you get. Everyone needs different amounts of sleep according to their age, gender, body composition, stress levels, location, caloric expenditure, hormone levels, etc. The ultimate goal is to go through enough sleep cycles to rejuvenate the mind and body and wake up after coming back into the lightest sleep stage.
