Let’s use a Harris Teeter Organics Cheese Pizza for example (click the pizza pic or here to see the full image). It can be a healthy and sensible meal.  On the front of the box, it says it has 280 calories, 4 grams saturated fat, 740 mg Sodium, and 0 sugars. Sounds great for an entire pizza, right? Well, in smaller print, it says that those values are for 1/3 of the pizza! If you were to eat the entire pizza (and it isn’t that big) you would be consuming 840 calories, 12 grams saturated fat and 2220 mg Sodium.

If your goal is weight loss, start in the grocery store by reading nutritional labels and understanding what you are consuming. Then make it happen in the kitchen!

Cheers

Paul

Stephanie Hucko wins The Race to The Top of the Duke Energy Building

Congratulations to top Prescriptive Fitness Personal Trainers Stephanie Hucko and Ashley Smith. Both competed in the Race to The Top of the Duke Energy Center in Charlotte, NC on March 24th. Stephanie won the women’s race for the second year in a row while Ashley placed 5th in her first attempt.

Both ladies practice what they preach, and it shows!

Click here for the full article from the Charlotte Observer.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen extremely successful and intelligent people looking for exceptional personal training choose a personal trainer that they know absolutely nothing about. Executives that make informed decisions everyday–critical decisions that impact every aspect of their business or life. Decisions that require time, research, and money. How is it then, that they can make such an important decision with their most vital possession,their own body, with the blink of an eye? It may be because a friend told them that the personal trainer was amazing. It may be because they like the way the personal trainer looks. It could be impulsivity. Most likely, though, they don’t know any better. They make important decisions all day long, and now they are looking for someone else to make important decisions that impact their daily health and life!

Well, as far as I know, there isn’t a textbook or an infomercial that tells the fitness consumer how to properly choose a personal trainer or personal training company. There certainly are infomercials that dupe the average person into believing that they could look like the person in the video if they do this and that-but I will save that for another blog post.

I’ve been in the business of personal training since 1993 and have seen my fair share of poor personal trainers and phenomenal personal trainers. I’ve seen meathead personal trainers that pick things up and put them down, and academic personal trainers that don’t know the first thing about relating to people. I’ve seen personal trainers that flat-out know their trade, and others that make a mockery of it. I’ve seen personal training studios come and go.

One of my first and best “executive” clients in Charlotte found me. I had just moved to Charlotte from NY where I had a successful personal training business. I had been personal training for 5 years and had only a few personal trainers working for me. He was one of the few people to research my personal training background before he chose me as a personal trainer. I can remember to this day talking to him on the phone and listening to him tell me how he knew that I had gone to Wake Forest University and was an ALL-ACC track athlete there. He knew that I competed professionally in the sport of Duathlon and knew that I had the top two certifications in the personal training industry. He liked the way that I worked with people. I told him my rates were higher than the rest of my personal trainers and that I had very few openings in my schedule. He was persistent as he was savvy. I still train him 14 years later and he looks better now at the age of 55 than he did in his 30′s and 40′s. He did his research on personal training found the best personal trainer for his needs.

There are many characteristics and qualifications that make a personal trainer exceptional. Educational background, athletic background, level of personal training certification, continuing education, physical appearance, personality, and interpersonal skills. There are personal trainers that have primary jobs and train clients on the side in their spare time. There are personal trainers that work out a lot and believe that they can now teach others to do the same. There are personal trainers that get the easiest personal training certifications because they lack experience and knowledge. There are personal trainers that engage in dangerous training methods that can severely injure their clients. There are personal trainers that are just training because they think it is a great way to earn money.

Then there is the career personal trainer who has obtained the highest level of certification, has gone to school to master their trade, attends personal training conferences every year, understands and stays current on the latest personal training trends, practices what they preach, and has a genuine thirst to learn and master their craft. You have a complete sense of comfort when you speak to this type of personal trainer and immediately know you are in good hands.

When choosing a personal trainer, here are a few things to look for. For descriptions of personal training certifications, click the links below:

• Bachelors degree in an exercise science or related field.
• Certification from the NSCA (CSCS or CPT), ACSM, NASM, or ACE.
• How do they train clients? Observe them personal training others and imagine yourself training with them.
• How long have they been certified as a personal trainer?
• Do they look the part of a personal trainer?
• How do their clients look? Ask them if they are seeing the results they want.
• Are they engaging their clients?
• Are they dressed appropriately (neat, professional)
• Do they have another job, or is personal training their career?
• Do they work for a reputable personal training company?

Links to the best Personal Training Certifications in the Industry

National Strength and Conditioning Association(NSCA)

American College of Sports Medicine

National Academy of Sports Medicine

American Council on Exercise

Great personal trainers are hard to find, but they do exist. If you do your homework, you should be able to find the best personal trainer that you can afford. In the personal training business, you do “get what you pay for” the majority of the time. Personal training is a hands on profession that we take pride in at Prescriptive Fitness Training. Be a smart fitness consumer and research the person who will be in charge of changing your body!

Cheers,

Paul Sklar

Founder

One of the most important things that needs to be done before deciding on what type of exercise program to do or hiring a personal trainer is defining your goals. Without a clear idea or assessment of what your goals are or might be, you and your personal trainer are searching for something very specific in a very big and completely dark closet. You may think you have found what you are looking for (and get very excited that you have found it!) until you turn on the light in the closet and find that it is not what you thought it was.

Ask yourself a few questions and think about what you want to accomplish from personal training:

• How can a personal trainer help me?
• What is it that am I trying to accomplish? What is it exactly that I want? Do I want to increase strength and lose weight at the same time? Do I just want to lose weight….or just body fat?
• Am I an athlete that needs specific personal training for my sport? Do I need to get stronger and faster…or do I just need more flexibility? Do I need to work out for 1 hours a day or 3 hours a day…1 day a week or 5 days a week.. or every day in order to accomplish my goals?
• Do I need to be flipping tires or trying to crush them with a sledge hammer? Or do I just like that kind of stuff? How is it going to help me improve my life?
• Am I only exercising because someone told me I need to (a doctor, friend, spouse)?
• Or do I just want to look good…or great? Do I want to be able to go to the pool or to the beach and not be embarrassed about taking off my shirt or getting into my bathing suit?

What exactly do I want?

These are just a few examples of how to go through the thought process of defining your goals so that your personal trainer can help you accomplish them and prescribe a good personal training program for you. I may not have even mentioned anything that even resembles your goals. It is your job, and the job of your personal trainer, to understand what your goals are so that appropriate personal training methods and designs can be prescribed and employed.

Then choose a personal training organization with personal trainers that can help you accomplish these goals. Ask them about their personal training background. What is their educational background, their level of personal training certification, their philosophy on personal training? How long have they been in the industry? Find out who the person is that you have chosen to put your most valuable asset with (your own body!) Ask them about their personal training successes, and also ask them if they have had any failures. Ask them why you should choose them to guide you on your journey. Are they the right personal trainer for you?

Not having personal training goals and starting a personal training program is like getting in your car and driving without a destination!

Define your personal training goals today reap the rewards.

Cheers!

Paul Sklar CSCS

Founder

Prescriptive Fitness

I came home to my wife Sandy and my 3 1/2 month old Mason,who hadn’t seen me all day and desperately needed my attention. There was no way I was going to be able to get a workout in and sacrifice family time…..or could I?

I put the baby in the stroller and headed out for a walk. How could I optimize this small amount of time? I designed the following workout that took less than 32 minutes to complete and left my legs screaming and my heart pounding. Here it is:

1. 6 min of lunge walking alternating one hand at a time on the stroller, but not using it for support. I walk recovered one minute and repeated the entire sequence 3 times adding diagonal lunge walks when my legs became overly fatigued, but never stopping. The road terrain was undulating which meant I had the opportunity to lunge both uphill and downhill, as well as on the flat. Total time: 21 minutes.
2. I sprinted the .3 mile hill of my neighborhood with the stroller 3x, jogging back to the bottom after each one for recovery. Total time: 8 minutes
3. I did standing calf raises on my front steps 2x1min until the baby woke up!

Total workout time: 31 minutes

Bonding experience with my baby: Priceless

Who said I wasn’t going to have time to workout today:)

Try not to use the excuse “I don’t have time to exercise”, because more often then not, you really do!

Cheers!
Paul

Click here for some great ideas for quick and healthy breakfast alternatives!

Excited? Sound too good to be true? Well, much more research needs to be done and there is no way a pill will never replace the benefits of true exercise!

Click here for the full article