Total Gym

The BIG Reveal! Todd Durkin's Exclusive Total Gym Insider Tip #1

We’ve kept you guessing long enough …

Our mystery guest is none other than Todd Durkin, founder of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, named one of the “Top 10 Gyms” in the U.S. by Men’s Health.

Todd is a recognized performance coach, personal trainer and motivational speaker with a heavy-hitting client roster that includes NFL players Drew Brees, Kellen Winslow and LaDainian Tomlinson as well as Tim Stauffer of the San Diego Padres and Olympic snowboarding champ Shaun White.

Todd has trained the best and now you get his exclusive Total Gym Insider Training Tips only on this blog!

This week Todd shows you some of his favorite exercises on Total Gym PowerTower, which is included in many of his pro athletes’ training regimens.

NEXT WEDNESDAY we’ll reveal Todd’s Total Gym Insider Tip #2. Todd’s second video features his favorite mix of heart-racing, calorie-torching bodyweight resistance training exercises that you can do at home.

Get your copy of Todd’s new book The IMPACT! Body Plan on store shelves now. Visit http://www.todddurkin.com/impact.html for details and retail locations.

The BIG Reveal! Todd Durkin’s Exclusive Total Gym Insider Tip #1

We’ve kept you guessing long enough …

Our mystery guest is none other than Todd Durkin, founder of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, named one of the “Top 10 Gyms” in the U.S. by Men’s Health.

Todd is a recognized performance coach, personal trainer and motivational speaker with a heavy-hitting client roster that includes NFL players Drew Brees, Kellen Winslow and LaDainian Tomlinson as well as Tim Stauffer of the San Diego Padres and Olympic snowboarding champ Shaun White.

Todd has trained the best and now you get his exclusive Total Gym Insider Training Tips only on this blog!

This week Todd shows you some of his favorite exercises on Total Gym PowerTower, which is included in many of his pro athletes’ training regimens.

NEXT WEDNESDAY we’ll reveal Todd’s Total Gym Insider Tip #2. Todd’s second video features his favorite mix of heart-racing, calorie-torching bodyweight resistance training exercises that you can do at home.

Get your copy of Todd’s new book The IMPACT! Body Plan on store shelves now. Visit http://www.todddurkin.com/impact.html for details and retail locations.

Total Gym Weekly Workout – Squat Sequence

Total Gym Weekly Workout – This is the Squat Sequence!  Today we work on the lower body.   Lie on your back with your butt on the board and you are ready for squats – this hits primarily the muscles of the thighs, hips and buttocks.

Change your foot positioning to work the lower extremities, or add some jumps for light plyometrics – Tom demonstrates variations to get you going.

This video is from a series of exercise tips and workouts created for Total Gym customers. To watch the introduction for this series click here.

Tara's Friday Bite – Are You Under-eating?

Believe it or not, the most common problem I see in my office is under-eating. Don’t get me wrong, there is a whole lot of over-eating going in our country! However, typically when people first start changing their diet and exercise routines they slash their calories in hopes of seeing faster results. When you under-eat you may initially see a drop in fat but soon you will experience a frustrating plateau in weight loss, then a reduction in energy/performance. If you continue over a period of time, you can damage your metabolism, upset your hormones and lose bone density. In order to understand why this happens, let’s take a step back and look at your metabolism.

Many people think that the majority of the calories that they burn are expended through exercise. That’s not necessarily true. Even when you are just sitting in a chair you have a lot of action going on in your body. Your body is thinking, breathing, digesting, etc. All this action uses energy. The measure of this energy is called your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and it is expressed in the form of calories. The most accurate way to measure your RMR is by using a simple breathing test that can be found at your local gym or through your nutritionist. However, a quick way to estimate your RMR is by using a calculator like this one at Active.com: http://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/calories/. This calculator will tell you how many calories you are burning daily BEFORE exercise. Then on top of that you need to incorporate average calories burned during your daily exercise routine. Check out Discovery Health’s activity calorie burn rate calculator here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/cholesterol/activity/activity.html. Add that number to your Resting Metabolic Rate and you have the average number of calories burned per day, including exercise. If you want to maintain your weight, this is the number of calories to aim for. If you want to lose weight, subtract 500 from this number and that should result in about 1 lb per week.

The more active you are, the higher your RMR number will be. If you are also trying to eat as clean as possible (i.e., lean protein, fruits, vegetables, etc.) you may actually find that this is a hard number to hit. The answer is not to stuff yourself or trade in your brown rice for a deep dish pizza. Instead try to add some more nutrient-dense foods like avocados, quinoa, sweet potatoes, olive oil, peanut butter, etc. You are working hard and you need this food to fuel your workouts and rebuild your muscles. Remember, the difference between a workout where you feel great and energized and one where you are staring at the clock hoping not to die is the food that you put in your body! Make sure it’s the right quantity and quality. You deserve it!

Tara Coleman www.taracoleman.com

Tara Coleman is a Clinical Nutritionist living in San Diego, CA. She blogs for 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 – Are You Under-eating?

Believe it or not, the most common problem I see in my office is under-eating. Don’t get me wrong, there is a whole lot of over-eating going in our country! However, typically when people first start changing their diet and exercise routines they slash their calories in hopes of seeing faster results. When you under-eat you may initially see a drop in fat but soon you will experience a frustrating plateau in weight loss, then a reduction in energy/performance. If you continue over a period of time, you can damage your metabolism, upset your hormones and lose bone density. In order to understand why this happens, let’s take a step back and look at your metabolism.

Many people think that the majority of the calories that they burn are expended through exercise. That’s not necessarily true. Even when you are just sitting in a chair you have a lot of action going on in your body. Your body is thinking, breathing, digesting, etc. All this action uses energy. The measure of this energy is called your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and it is expressed in the form of calories. The most accurate way to measure your RMR is by using a simple breathing test that can be found at your local gym or through your nutritionist. However, a quick way to estimate your RMR is by using a calculator like this one at Active.com: http://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/calories/. This calculator will tell you how many calories you are burning daily BEFORE exercise. Then on top of that you need to incorporate average calories burned during your daily exercise routine. Check out Discovery Health’s activity calorie burn rate calculator here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/cholesterol/activity/activity.html. Add that number to your Resting Metabolic Rate and you have the average number of calories burned per day, including exercise. If you want to maintain your weight, this is the number of calories to aim for. If you want to lose weight, subtract 500 from this number and that should result in about 1 lb per week.

The more active you are, the higher your RMR number will be. If you are also trying to eat as clean as possible (i.e., lean protein, fruits, vegetables, etc.) you may actually find that this is a hard number to hit. The answer is not to stuff yourself or trade in your brown rice for a deep dish pizza. Instead try to add some more nutrient-dense foods like avocados, quinoa, sweet potatoes, olive oil, peanut butter, etc. You are working hard and you need this food to fuel your workouts and rebuild your muscles. Remember, the difference between a workout where you feel great and energized and one where you are staring at the clock hoping not to die is the food that you put in your body! Make sure it’s the right quantity and quality. You deserve it!

Tara Coleman www.taracoleman.com

Tara Coleman is a Clinical Nutritionist living in San Diego, CA. She blogs for 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.

Something BIG is Coming to Total Gym Inside!!

Something BIG is coming to Total Gym Inside next Wednesday!! We are very excited to get this kind of exclusive on our blog!

All week we’ll be giving you clues about the BIG Reveal on the Total Gym Facebook and Total Gym Twitter pages. Become a “Fan” on Facebook or “Follow” us on Twitter to get the clues!

Here’s Clue #1:  It’s a person!

Don’t worry, the clues will get more detailed as we go. Feel free to share your guesses on our Facebook and Twitter pages. For you Twitter-ers, please use #totalgyminside so we can find your guesses!

We look forward to sharing the BIG Reveal with you next Wednesday!!

Total Gym Weekly Workout – Total Gym Maintenance

Thanks for checking in this Monday morning!  This week I wanted to review some simple steps to keep your Total Gym in tip top shape.

If you are looking for more exercise tips, check out the Total Gym You Tube channel or we’ll be back next week with more great exercises.