What is killing me about this article is the high importance given to the drugs he was using to lower this and manage that, and they manage to mention he rode an exercise bike…

But, how long? When did he start exercising? 6 months ago? One year, two?

This was ENTIRELY preventable. It’s so not about managing everything once it ALREADY EXISTS, it’s about not getting to this place to start with. They didnt give him more invasive tests because he didnt have chest pains …

This angers me so much. By the time there are CHEST PAINS you are in deep sh@t. And Tim Russert also seems like the kind of guy that would shrug off a chest pain and keep it movin’….

Hope this wakes men up enough to get their a@@es to the doctor, don’t shrug off cardio like it doesnt matter, and guys…START TAKING CARE OF YOURSELVES NOW.
From Todays NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/heal th/17russert.html?ref=health

A Search for Answers in Russert’s Death

By DENISE GRADY

Published: June 17, 2008

Given the great strides that have been made in preventing and treating heart disease, what explains Tim Russert’s sudden death last week at 58 from a heart attack?

The answer, at least in part, is that although doctors knew that Mr. Russert, the longtime moderator of “Meet the Press” on NBC, had coronary artery disease and were treating him for it, they did not realize how severe the disease was because he did not have chest pain or other telltale symptoms that would have justified the kind of invasive tests needed to make a definitive diagnosis. In that sense, his case was sadly typical: more than 50 percent of all men who die of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms, the American Heart Association says.It is not clear whether Mr. Russert’s death could have been prevented. He was doing nearly all he could to lower his risk. He took blood pressure pills and a statin drug to control his cholesterol, he worked out every day on an exercise bike, and he was trying to lose weight, his doctors said on Monday. And still it was not enough.

If there is any lesson in his death, his doctors said, it is a reminder that heart disease can be silent, and that people, especially those with known risk factors, should pay attention to diet, blood pressure, weight and exercise — even if they are feeling fine.

“If there’s one number that’s a predictor of mortality, it’s waist circumference,” said Dr. Michael A. Newman, Mr. Russert’s internist.

But, Dr. Newman added, most people would rather focus on their LDL cholesterol, instead of taking measures to reduce their waist size. Studies have found a waist of over 40 inches in men and 35 inches in women is a risk factor for heart disease.

Mr. Russert’s cholesterol was not high, and medicine controlled his high blood pressure pretty well, Dr. Newman said. But, he added, Mr. Russert was “significantly overweight.” He also had a dangerous combination of other risk factors: high triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, and a low level of HDL, the “good cholesterol” that can help the body get rid of the bad cholesterol that can damage arteries.

Even so, Dr. Newman said, “the autopsy findings were a surprise.”

In an interview, Dr. Newman and Mr. Russert’s cardiologist, Dr. George Bren, said the autopsy found significant blockages in several coronary arteries, which feed blood to the heart muscle.

Blockages start out as cholesterol deposits in the artery walls that turn into lesions or plaques, narrowing the vessels. Heart attacks occur when a plaque ruptures, causing a blood clot that quickly closes the artery and pinches off the blood supply to part of the heart.

In Mr. Russert’s case, the heart attack was caused by a plaque rupture in a branch of the left anterior descending coronary artery. The heart attack led to an abnormal heart rhythm that stopped his heart from pumping blood effectively and caused his death.

“What is surprising,” Dr. Newman said, “is that the severity of the anatomical findings would not be predicted from his clinical situation, the absence of symptoms and his performing at a very high level of exercise.”

In 1998, Mr. Russert had a calcium score of 210 on a CT scan of the coronary arteries, a test that indicates blockages. The result called for “an intensive cardioprotective regimen,” Dr. Newman said. That level can indicate a moderate to high risk of a heart attack.

Dr. Newman and Dr. Bren said that in the past year, Mr. Russert’s blood pressure had risen a bit, and that they had changed his drug regimen to lower it. His heart muscle had also thickened. Some cardiologists say a thickened or enlarged heart can indicate severe heart disease and should prompt more tests, like an angiogram, to look for artery blockages. But those tests are invasive, and Mr. Russert’s doctors did not think he needed them.

Had the tests been done and the true extent of blockages revealed, Dr. Newman said, Mr. Russert would probably have been advised to have bypass surgery. Dr. Bren differed, saying it was not clear that there was enough disease to prompt a recommendation for surgery.

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I seriously want to thank my clients. They all make me realize how lucky I am to do what I do.

Today…measurement time for one client.

44 lbs lost in 3 months.

33 inches all over.

8 of those inches off her waist.

I’m SO PROUD of her.

She doesn’t ‘diet’. She eats WELL.

She works out 4x/wk.

Twice with me, twice on her own.

It’s not brain surgery. Movement cures everything.

An online client just emailed me…6lbs in one week.

WOW. What a great day today is. Thank you you guys!!!!

I can’t even describe how proud and happy I am to work for you.

The Top 10 Best Abs Exercises

Abs are probably the sexiest muscles for a lot of people looking to improve their fitness and strength. Home to the ‘six-pack’, the abdominals are the area that everyone wants to work on! Before taking a look at our Top 10 best abs exercises bear in mind that you won’t get the perfect six-pack by just following these guidelines - you still need to work to reduce your body fat with a healthy diet and to make sure that your whole body is lean and streamlined.

1. Full V-Ups
Lie flat on the floor keeping your legs about shoulder width apart. Put your hands over your head and raise your upper body and lower body until you are sitting up in a ‘v’ shape. Grab on behind the knees for a quick second to steady yourself and return to the floor, all the while keeping the ribcage closed and the navel pulled toward the spine. Your legs can be bent if need be, or you can straighten them.

2. Exercise Ball Crunches
Lie on the ball with your feet on the floor and your head raised - the ball should be sitting in the middle of your back. Put your hands behind your head and lift your body off the ball making sure to contract your abs as you raise yourself up.

3. Reverse Ball Crunches
Lie on your back with your exercise ball under the knees. When comfortable contract your abs and raise your hips up from the floor.

4. Straight Leg Lifts
Lie flat on your back with your hands under your buttocks - your knees should be slightly bent. Lift your head and shoulders, bring your legs up until your heels are about to leave the floor - your back should stay on the floor.

5. Hanging Leg Lifts
You’ll need a High Chair for this exercise so it may be best done at the gym. Take hold of the handles and rest your back against the rest. Your legs should be hanging comfortably and you should feel balanced. Lift your knees until they are at around a 90 degree angle to your body and then lower them.

6. Barbell Roll
Place a barbell on the floor and kneel down on your hands and knees. Place the barbell in front of you with hands about shoulder width apart. Roll forwards making sure not to arch the back….pull the navel upward and roll back to the starting position.

7. Alternating Straight Leg Bicycles
Lie flat on your back with your hands to your forehead and your elbows pointing forward. Keeping the legs straight raise a knee towards your chest and touch it with the opposite elbow while keeping your ribcage down and the navel pulled toward the floor. Repeat with the other leg/elbow.

8. Rubber Band Crunches
Lie flat on the floor with your arms stretched out above your head. Grab the end of a rubber band, bend the elbows and lift your head and shoulders off the floor.

9. Decline Bench Crunches
Lie on a bench with your head lower than your hips. Raise your upper body as high as possible. When returning, do not lie all the way down, keep the ribs closed and the navel pulled toward the spine.

10. Decline Twist Curl
Lie on your back on a decline bench with your feet/knees securely positioned. Cross your arms over your chest and rotate your torso as you lift the upper body. Repeat on the other side.

Remember to be careful trying out new exercises - if you are unsure about the right abs exercises for you then an a personal trainer in nyc will be able to give you the best advice. :)

Fitness isn’t complicated but, it’s easy to make mistakes. Lack of proper technique training or rushing to get the workout completed means details can get lost in the sauce. Over time fitness mistakes can build up, and lead to injuries or at the very least be counter-productive to your workout goals.

Here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them. These tips will help ensure your workout time is effective and help prevent injuries.

1. Freaking Out About The Scale
Your weight is not a reflection of your body composition, meaning lean muscle to fat ratio. We all know if we’re out of shape, but let your ability to do 50 pushups dictate the shape you’re in and how you feel about it.

2. Wasting Gym Time
It’s not osmosis. Just showing up at the gym is not going to help you get more fit. Enjoy your exercise time but make sure that the focus remains on moving around more than standing around. If you’re not sweating you’re not doing anything worthwhile.

3. Unrealistic Expectations
Newbies to fitness usually are not realistic with goal setting. It didn’t take 30 days to get in the shape you’re in, did it? Okay then. Also, DO NOT GO EVERY DAY. Give it REAL time. Get expert help, it’s worth what you’ll save in possibly wasting a gym membership if you get frustrated and quit, or worse…. you get injured.

4. Not Eating Enough Protein
Eating too many carbs overloads your system with sugar, which gets stored as bodyfat. The right balance of protein fills you up longer, takes longer to digest, and delivers a steady stream of nutrients into your system. If you get tired every day in the late afternoon, you’re eating too many carbs.

5. Not Drinking Enough Water
Drink 16 ounces for every hour of exercise you complete. That’s on top of the standard 8 glasses per day. You don’t have to pass out to be walking around dehydrated.

6. Eating Too Little
Not eating enough can be worse than eating too much. When the body is not fed properly it goes into a starvation mode. Meals every 4-5 hours keeps your blood sugar stable and keeps the metabolism running properly. Just be sure to control portion size. Do not skip breakfast! EVER!

Getting Leaner = Getting in Shape

Getting in shape is about looking better and more importantly, feeling better. It may help you to think in terms of “losing fat” instead of “losing weight.” This means changing your body’s muscle to fat composition ratio so that you have less fat and more muscle. Since muscle weighs more than fat, losing weight (by what you see on the scale) should not be the sole measurement of your progress. How your body looks, how your clothes fit and how you feel are all great benchmarks of success. Six pack abs are only accomplished by building the abdominal muscles and then losing the fat that covers them up.

Fat Burning and Aerobics
A proper diet helps to increase calorie burning by boosting the metabolism, a process which is accelerated as you develop lean muscle. They go hand in hand. An aerobic exercise program burns fat and increases that metabolic rate by making that newly developed lean muscle move around more! Usually done on a stairmaster, stationery bicycle, treadmill, elliptical machine or by jogging outdoors; the goal is to maintain cardiovascular activity for a minimum of 40 minutes. Which brings us to….

Calorie Loss = Fat Loss
The basis for body fat loss is expending more calories in exercise than you take in through eating and drinking. 3500 calories equals one pound of fat. The reverse is also true. Using 3500 calories will cause a reduction of one pound of fat. Therefore, to effectively lose fat, you must restrict your calorie intake (not too much!) and increase your calorie output.

High Protein, Low Carb
A personal trainers can design a diet and nutritional plan that will give you just the right amount of calories to accomplish your goals. A strategic diet and nutrition plan will consist of foods that provide the proper nutrients so that you become healthier, more energetic, and more able to shape up effectively through muscle toning or body building….all while losing fat. High protein, low carbohydrate, moderate to low fat diets with plenty of vegetables done in small frequent meals are generally recommended to attain any long term reliable fitness results.

Spot Reduction of Fat - HA!
When embarking upon a fat loss program that spot reduction of fat is not possible. It never was possible, and it will never be possible. Research shows that the first gained, and usually the largest, fat deposit is the last place that our bodies lose fat from. So if you’re sporting a spare tire around your mid-section or saddle bags on your thighs, that will likely be the last place you lose from. Sticking with it is the the ONLY way to lose it forever. A good personal fitness trainer can also provide motivation and create a balanced program that helps power you through a a long term goal.

Obesity - We’re Fat
The number of Americans who are obese, is on the rise. This disease, affects more than 50 million people in this country. Just watching enough Discovery Health Channel can show you this in real time! Health risks from obesity include, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, gallbladder disease, and prostate, colon and breast cancer. The fight against fat is not an easy one, especially for chronically affected people. It is a life-long, tough battle. There is no question that the development of healthy eating and an active fitness lifestyle is a cornerstone in winning this fight. Expert fitness trainers usually have a great deal of experience working with people in this group. If necessary they work with a client’s physician and develop a program centered around restructuring lifestyle while helping to provide the necessary impetus for its success.

There are many great reasons for getting in shape, and now you know that looking good and feeling better are definitely goals worth sweating for!

This post is specifically for men over 35. Nothing will make you fatter FASTER than alcohol, minimal sleep, high stress and NO downtime. Without adequate rest your body starts producing extra stress related hormones to handle the perceived ‘threat’ which further slows down and disrupts the metabolism. And no, ‘downtime’ doesn’t consist of the four days you’ve spent in bed getting over the flu that you got because of alochol, minimal sleep, high stress and NO downtime.

I’ve made significant strides with this kind of client. I have to ego-them into a bet for the most part by betting that they can’t abstain from alcohol for 30 days….it’s a cheap trick, I’ll admit it…BUT ALL have had significant reductions in (specifically) the waistline measurement by an INCH or more in as little as 30 days of abstinence from alcohol combined with getting 2 more hours of sleep per night. If you’re NOT out drinking you have at least 2 hours extra to sleep.

So while a trainer can stave off EXTRA damage or keep damage at BEY while you’re burning the candle at both ends…you HAVE TO know that what you do on your end makes ALL the difference. Once you’re over 40…any extended waistline becomes DOUBLY difficult to eradicate.

I tell alot of people that use food/drink as entertainment, that there are alot of other ways to have a good time. Drinking as an ‘activity’ is the fastest way to become fat and old. Annnd young chicks don’t like fat and old. ;) In fact no woman likes fat and old….

So save a couple of drinks for ONE NIGHT on the weekend, and if you want to party like it’s 1999, just remember that Prince is 46 and one reason he still looks and sounds as good is because he’s never been into alcohol. We all also know that not everyone is a rockstar - but alot of ya are living your own version of the rockstar life and if you want to continue to do that…lay off the alcohol and get some reasonable sleep - your waistline will definitely show the results quicker than you think.

I’ve been updating all the fitness blogs and I found a cool thing that puts the most recent posts in one spot. So now you can find all the fitness blog recent posts in one spot. Click here to check it out. I also reccommend google reader which is a handy little tool that keeps all your newsfeeds in one neat place. There are so many fun things to play with if you really explore the google website…it’s just unbelievable. Soon I’ll be adding free email/calendar/chat & webpages on www.exerciseradio.com - all courtesy of Google.

Also coming to ExerciseRadio will be it’s own online training pod where members can train themselves with the workout generator, track their progress and track their food with the food diary. It’ll have a small membership fee attached to it - but nothing crazy.

ANNND….some opportunity has opened up to increase my studio space -and possibly take on a partner. Hooooo boy.

Can’t complain - I just hope I can keep UP! lololol

Many times I am faced with a client who hires me and then wants to do things their way. This is a service business, true. BUT people sometimes forget that what brought them to my door in the first place is the fact that what they’re doing isn’t working.

Usually after some time and work passes, it’s not just about what they’re DOING, but it’s also how they’re THINKING about what they’re doing.

In order to get lifelong sustainable change, the thought process has to change from the inside out.
I call this ‘athlete thinking’. It doesn’t mean you’re going to train for a marathon if you don’t want to, I’m just going to teach you how to think like it though.

posted by Personal Trainer NYC :: TW Training NYC @ 5:21 PM

Workout on Bravo

I’ll start off my blog with a post about this ‘reality’ show which I watched last night. I have the fortunate vantage point of having been there, done that - since I owned an 8,000 sq. ft facility in NYC from 1997-2000 - and boy is she in for a ride. Considering in the first episode the owner of this personal training studio:

- allows a client to discuss her dating and sexuality status
- allows an employee to moon her
- allows her girlfriend to chastise aforementioned mooning employee
- wants the ‘best’ trainers yet corrects them in front of the clients

In her defense, she does have four employees who seem to be focused and on it, and already on top of their game. One thing I know for sure is you really can’t hire ‘top’ established trainers to work for you and then tell them how to train their clients. If that’s what she’s looking for, she’s going to have a rough, rough go of it. Younger, less established trainers with POTENTIAL, yes, she’ll be able to mold them. But unless someone is doing something blatatly outright dangerous, she should trust her trainers to do what they do.

OR, maybe she should hire better from the start, hoo boy I learned that one too. Talk about painful …eesh. We’ll see what happens…if… I can stand to watch it again, it was painfully bad.

posted by Personal Trainer NYC :: TW Training NYC @ 4:30 PM  2