Total Gym

Total Gym Weekly Workout – Biceps Sequence

Happy Monday! Tom is out today at the Can-Fit-Pro convention and tradeshow in Toronto, Canada. He’ll be showcasing our GRAVITY workout on Total Gym – along with our Canadian distribution team – to over 10,000 attendees at the commercial fitness show.

Great arms requires hard work – sorry there’s no easy answer here! These biceps exercises on Total Gym are dynamic and challenging enough to see results … but they are also fun! Keep your elbows high and stabilize through the core to stay upright throughout every exercise. Look for progressions like static equilibrium exercises and supine bicep curls.

Tara's Friday Bite – New Twist on the Food Journal

How many times have you sat on your couch in the evening trying to ignore your craving for the carton of ice cream that seems to be SCREAMING at you from the freezer? Are you starving because you haven’t eaten enough that day? Is it because of a killer workout you did earlier? Or is it just your emotions talking? Well, there’s only one way to identify the reason for your cravings and that’s by keeping a food journal.

Having said that…food journals are often perceived as a hassle. Oftentimes, it is a miracle that we find enough time to eat let alone write it all down! When we do record what we eat, it’s usually from memory and that is rarely accurate.

So instead of keeping a written journal, why not try keeping a visual journal? Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people who took pictures of what they ate for one week actually made better food choices than those who simply wrote it down. Use your camera phone or digital camera to record everything that you eat for a day. At the end of the day you can either just review the pictures or use them to enter information about what you ate that day into a free online calorie tracker like the one found at LIVESTRONG.COM. This is my personal favorite…and yes, there’s also an app for that! It’s called the LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker. This calorie-tracking software allows you to see exactly what you are putting into your body on a daily basis. You may actually find that you are doing a better job than you are giving yourself credit for!

Tara is offering a FREE private nutrition analysis for Total Gym Inside subscribers. Just mention “Total Gym Inside” when scheduling an appointment for an in-person or phone consultation. Visit www.taracoleman.com.

Tara Coleman www.taracoleman.com

Tara Coleman is a Clinical Nutritionist living in San Diego, CA, and the newest spokesperson for Salada Tea. She will guest blog on Total Gym Inside twice a month with “Tara’s Friday Bite.” Leave us your comments with ideas for future topics or email Tara directly at tara@taracoleman.com.

Tara’s Friday Bite – New Twist on the Food Journal

How many times have you sat on your couch in the evening trying to ignore your craving for the carton of ice cream that seems to be SCREAMING at you from the freezer? Are you starving because you haven’t eaten enough that day? Is it because of a killer workout you did earlier? Or is it just your emotions talking? Well, there’s only one way to identify the reason for your cravings and that’s by keeping a food journal.

Having said that…food journals are often perceived as a hassle. Oftentimes, it is a miracle that we find enough time to eat let alone write it all down! When we do record what we eat, it’s usually from memory and that is rarely accurate.

So instead of keeping a written journal, why not try keeping a visual journal? Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people who took pictures of what they ate for one week actually made better food choices than those who simply wrote it down. Use your camera phone or digital camera to record everything that you eat for a day. At the end of the day you can either just review the pictures or use them to enter information about what you ate that day into a free online calorie tracker like the one found at LIVESTRONG.COM. This is my personal favorite…and yes, there’s also an app for that! It’s called the LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker. This calorie-tracking software allows you to see exactly what you are putting into your body on a daily basis. You may actually find that you are doing a better job than you are giving yourself credit for!

Tara is offering a FREE private nutrition analysis for Total Gym Inside subscribers. Just mention “Total Gym Inside” when scheduling an appointment for an in-person or phone consultation. Visit www.taracoleman.com.

Tara Coleman www.taracoleman.com

Tara Coleman is a Clinical Nutritionist living in San Diego, CA, and the newest spokesperson for Salada Tea. She will guest blog on Total Gym Inside twice a month with “Tara’s Friday Bite.” Leave us your comments with ideas for future topics or email Tara directly at tara@taracoleman.com.

Total Gym Weekly Workout – Postnatal Exercise

Today’s weekly workout video speaks to the new moms who might need a little motivation to get back into a regular and safe exercise routine post-baby. Please consult your doctor and/or a certified fitness professional before getting back into exercise. There are safety concerns for new moms, especially those who had a cesarean section.

GRAVITY Master Trainer and certified fitness professional Tricia Alker is a new mom herself and she takes you through a series of beginning to advanced postnatal exercises. In this video, Tricia focuses on building strength in the upper body first considering that’s where you are constantly carrying heavy loads including baby, diaper bags and more.

For the men out there, you can do these upper body exercises as well. Just increase the resistance by going up a few levels!

Be sure to check out more GRAVITY on Total Gym exercises at www.gravityclubhouse.com. It’s free to register and access this video and more programming and online extras.
GRAVITYPick_My Postnatal Workout

Fitness Wisdom Wednesday – Metabolic Training on Total Gym

You may have heard of the phrase “metabolic training” on TV or in a fitness magazine. Maybe the most popular examples of the non-stop, high-intensity training are seen in the P90X infomercial and the latest “Insanity” workout that allegedly pushes you past your limits in the “hardest workout program ever put on DVD.” I can’t account to the truth of that statement, but here’s a quick definition of metabolic training:

A fast-paced circuit workout where you do a series of fairly simple weightlifting and cardiovascular exercises in a short amount of time working your muscles to fatigue. The idea is to create a very high-intensity workout to burn fat while adding muscle tone. A great way to break up tired fitness routines and fast track your results.

Word to the wise…you don’t need a muscle-bound meat head yelling at you through the TV in order to benefit from metabolic training. In fact, you can do your own metabolic workout at home on your Total Gym! International GRAVITYMasterTrainer Michael Steel offers the following tips for creating your own at-home Total Gym metabolic strength training workout:

• Start by picking 3-4 total body exercises that you are comfortable doing. Then set a number of repetitions for each exercise, say 10-12.
• Plan to do these exercises in a circuit, repeating each exercise 3-5 times (depending on your fitness level) without stopping.
• As you transition from one exercise to the next, utilize your squat stand by adding a set of 10-15 plyometric jump squats in between to keep your heart rate up. Click here for a video demonstration of plyometric squats on Total Gym.
• Avoid taking any breaks until you’ve completed all 3-5 sets!

Now go get your sweat on!

We’re interested in hearing about your Total Gym metabolic workout! Leave us a comment with your routine.

Cassie is the Communications Manager for efi Sports Medicine/Total Gym and a published fitness writer.

Tom's Weekly Tip – Back to the Basics on Total Gym

Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics. Whether it’s simplifying your life with less work or social commitments, or getting back to the basics of budgeting and saving to build your nest egg for the future.

With exercise, we get so used to doing our workout routines on a regular basis that we tend to forget how we got to this point. With repetition, you can also lose proper form as you get used to doing exercises over and over again.

There are so many capabilities and uses for your Total Gym that we thought you’d like to take a trip down memory lane to the first time you put your “booty on the board” and started movin’. You may even remember exercises that you forgot you could do!

Here’s GRAVITYMasterTrainer Rob Glick to take you back to the basics on Total Gym. This video has received over 30,000 views on our Total Gym YouTube Channel!

What are your favorite “back to the basics” exercises on Total Gym? Share your comments below.

Tom’s Weekly Tip – Back to the Basics on Total Gym

Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics. Whether it’s simplifying your life with less work or social commitments, or getting back to the basics of budgeting and saving to build your nest egg for the future.

With exercise, we get so used to doing our workout routines on a regular basis that we tend to forget how we got to this point. With repetition, you can also lose proper form as you get used to doing exercises over and over again.

There are so many capabilities and uses for your Total Gym that we thought you’d like to take a trip down memory lane to the first time you put your “booty on the board” and started movin’. You may even remember exercises that you forgot you could do!

Here’s GRAVITYMasterTrainer Rob Glick to take you back to the basics on Total Gym. This video has received over 30,000 views on our Total Gym YouTube Channel!

What are your favorite “back to the basics” exercises on Total Gym? Share your comments below.