Happy New Year Total Gym’ers! We hope you are off to a FANTASTIC 2012!

What good habits are you planning to adopt this year? Inspire us by leaving a Comment below.

Here’s your New Year Smart Start workout to get the year started right!

This is an efficient exercise sequence maximizing the inverted prone position on Total Gym. Need a Press Bar for your Total Gym Sport, GTS or PowerTower? Click here. Total Gym XLS owners, click here to purchase the Press Up Bars.

Pushup; Overhead Press; Prone Jackknife

Cheers to a Happy and Healthy New Year!

While you begin to de-Christmas your diet, check out ALL the ways you can work your core with Total Gym Plank exercises. GRAVITY Master Trainer Michael Steel demos how to add an extra upper body challenge while you’re at it!

Plank

By:  Physical Therapy Contributor Jessie Carter, PT

Low back pain has been a common theme around the clinic lately. Every year around this time, there seems to be an increase in patients complaining of back pain – aches and pains from shoveling snow, back strain from carrying shopping bags and packing gifts, and chronic pain patients want to address before the holidays.

I was out with the best of them on Black Friday braving the crowds. What started as a quick trip to snag some deals, however, turned into an all-night, exhausting event.

Consider these tips to keep your body from wearing down before you do:

• Wear comfortable shoes such as walking or running shoes when shopping. When it comes to walking the mall, comfort should win out over your cutest pair of heels to prevent stress to your ankles and feet.
• Lighten your load when you can. If you are shopping for a lot of items or for a long period of time, consider making frequent trips to your car to drop off packages. This provides extra exercise while reducing the stress on your back muscles.
• Distribute the weight of packages and shopping bags evenly on both sides of your body.  This means that you have to avoid holding all your bags in one hand to sip your favorite drink or fumble for your keys. This also means avoiding what I call “attitude standing” – propping all your weight through one hip (often times to hold a child propped on that same hip). Standing in this position can create undesirable forces through the hip joints, pelvis and spine.
• Women, keep your suitcase (I mean purse) weight to a minimum to avoid undue stress and fatigue. Only carry necessary items such as your wallet and keys. When carrying your purse, consider strapping that makes your body work the least or requires large joints over smaller joints to carry. For example, use a bag that has a shoulder strap or can be worn as a backpack instead of a purse with smaller handles.
• Plan ahead if possible. Whether you are going to campout to get the best deals or do a marathon shopping spree, you can ease physical and mental stress by making a list and avoiding prime shopping times. Remember that long lines and busy parking lots increase your time standing and walking.

While most back pain is mild and resolves on its own, some pain persists or comes back repeatedly over time. A lot of my patients, who have experienced low back pain for years, tell me they have tried multiple treatment options without success. They also report that each time the pain returns, it seems to get worse.

When you experience low back pain, one of the best things to do is to stay active and continue with your normal routine as much as possible, without the risk of further injury. This seems to contradict the old approach of “putting someone to bed” when they are down on their back. Bed rest for more than a day has been shown to actually slow recovery.

If your pain worsens or lasts more than a few days, then it is time to see a medical professional.  Immediate medical attention should be sought if you experience loss of bowel or bladder control, numbness in the groin or inner thigh and/or pain that does not change with rest.

Continue your Total Gym routine over the holidays to maintain optimal strength and tone. Try these “Cable Core Work” exercises to target your snow shoveling and shopping muscles: the shoulders, back, arms and chest in conjunction with the core.

Arm Cable Exercises; Recruiting the Core

The mad rush of the holidays is here…following these simple tips and taking care of your body will allow you to enjoy the season and shop without the drop.

Happy rehabbing!

Jessie Carter is the owner of High Pointe Rehab in Clarksville, TN, where she utilizes Total Gym for physical therapy and fitness training to offer the full continuum of patient care. Jessie is a 2001 graduate of the University of Evansville (UE) in Evansville, IN, where she earned both her BS and Master’s degrees in physical therapy. Contact Jessie at jessie@highpointetn.com with your questions or ideas for future topics.

Healthy New Posts From “Fytness Fanatik” Amanda Lynn Hare!

New Total Gym Inside blog contributor Amanda Lynn Hare is a Total Gym user since 1998. Amanda Lynn is here to share her enthusiasm for healthy, fit and fun living.

Keep your gut in check this holiday season with Amanda’s favorite core strengthening exercises! Benefits include: a tighter midsection, stronger core (trunk and back) and improved posture!

Amanda suggests completing 10-15 reps of each exercise below (depending on your fitness level):

* Pullover crunch with legs in table top position

* Ab crunch with SCRUNCH (Now 50% Off! Click here)

* Crunch with hamstring curl using the Folding Foot Holder (standard on Total Gym Sport, GTS and PowerTower) or the Wing Attachment for XLS

* Crunch at higher incline (no hamstring curl)

Upper Extremity Progressions

Most fitness experts agree that the V-shape in the back is what most people want before swimsuit season. The key is to strengthen the muscles of your core, back and shoulders. So I’ve designed my special “V for Victory” Super Circuit!

I’m going to show you 6 simple exercises to strengthen your core and tone your back and shoulders so you can show off that new beach body! Let’s start with the back, which is the largest muscle group in the body.

Here are two exercises that I believe are simply the best! The lateral pull down is an exercise that tones the mid to lower back muscles. Everyone needs to strengthen their back muscles because a strong back reduces the chance of injury. The swimmer exercise on Total Gym is the perfect exercise for toning the back muscles that surround the spine.

The kneeling upright row and lateral shoulder raise are two great exercises for the shoulders. The pullover crunch and seated torso rotation are two exercises that will strengthen your core and get you looking fit for summer. In fact, the seated torso rotation is my new personal favorite core exercise because it really works the oblique muscles as well as the abdominals!

There you have it! Now you can spring into action to get ready for summer. I recommend starting with one circuit and progressing to 2-5 sets of the circuit for your V for Victory summer body!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsvX_lVBwxk

Suggested workout circuit:

Exercise 1: Lateral pull down

Exercise 2: Seated torso rotation

Exercise 3: Kneeling upright row

Exercise 4: Swimmer

Exercise 5: Lateral shoulder raise

Exercise 6: Pullover crunch

Complete 1^st circuit at a level which allows you to comfortably complete 10 repetitions.

Refer to your Total Gym exercise guide for specific information for sets and repetitions for your personal fitness goals.

Introducing the newest line of Total Gym incline trainers -- the all-new Total Gym Sport and newly enhanced Total Gym GTS and PowerTower. More incline levels, a larger glideboard, all-aluminum rails and convenient folding/unfolding capabilities take Total Gym training to a new level. See what we mean: www.totalgym.com/products. Give us a call to discuss your new Total Gym model for summer 800-541-4900 ext. 300.

Todd Durkin, M.A., C.S.C.S., owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, offers functional training tips that he uses to condition his NFL athletes on Total Gym PowerTower. Todd utilizes these exercises when training his top athletes: Super Bowl XLIV MVP Drew Brees, former NFL MVP LaDainian Tomlinson, and athletes such as Aaron Rodgers, Kellen Winslow, Shawne Merriman, and more. Take your home workouts up a notch!

What Total Gym exercises do you want to see more of? Sport-specific exercises, stretching workouts or maybe a few Pilates moves? Drop us a line in the Comments section below.

Total Gym is the perfect piece of equipment to train for surfing. It requires you to recruit your core muscles to stay balanced while riding a killer swell (I had to throw in some lingo here).

Here’s our GRAVITY This Season video with some surfer-inspired Total Gym exercises. GRAVITYThisSeason_Surfing – Part 1

This video is from our GRAVITYClubhouse.com collection. Membership to GRAVITYClubhouse is free and you can gain access to more Total Gym GRAVITY videos and DVDs with new exercises you can do at home. Once you log in, check out the All Programming and Online Extras to get started shaping up for summer!

Remember the “telephone” game we all played as kids?

Someone whispered a message to another, and that message was passed down to many others.  Somehow, though, by the time the message finally reached you, it was completely distorted.

That same thing seems to happen with diet and fitness information. Whether it’s the latest workout trend featured in a magazine or a new diet promoted on TV, by the time your friends tell you about it, the original message often gets so muddled that you’re left utterly confused about what to eat or the best way to work out in the gym.

I’ve lined up a panel of fitness and nutrition professionals to help debunk some common fitness myths to help keep you focused on your exercise goals – whether it’s to lose weight, get in shape for a race or just live a healthier life.

Let’s crack these eight great fitness myths wide open.

Read the complete article … www.sdnn.com.

Tom and Nicole work on abs.