Fitness Experts Bar

How positive and cheerful are you?

Did you know that your outlook, whether it is optimistic or pessimistic, influences your enjoyment of life, your relationships and your health?

People are just naturally drawn to someone who exudes jovial good humor. Individuals who only see the darkness in life may become isolated and lonely. A good support system, people with whom we can share our thoughts and emotions are indispensable if we desire to be happy and healthy. Numerous studies have suggested that an adequate support system is imperative when one is overcoming trauma. Do you know any officers who have not been exposed to trauma?

A study in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings reports the following benefits from positive thinking. Besides a lowered risk of early death, researchers found other health benefits related to positive attitude. In the study, optimists reported:

• Fewer problems with work or other daily activities because of physical or emotional health
• Less pain and fewer limitations due to pain
• Less interference from physical or emotional problems when engaging in social activities
• Feeling more peaceful, happier and calmer
• Increased energy

Optimism is more than sanguinity…it may be your most effective medicine.

How optimistic are you?
Evaluate yourself with the scores:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Don’t know
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree

Circle or mark the number that most closely represents you answer.

Optimism

1. I can scarcely wait to see what will happen next in my life.
1 2 3 4 5

2. I am energized when the phone rings, wondering what adventure waits on the other end.
1 2 3 4 5

3. Blue? Why would I want to waste time feeling blue?
1 2 3 4 5

4. I have found that most people are trustworthy.
1 2 3 4 5

5. My glass is usually half full.
1 2 3 4 5

6. I expect great things to happen in my life.
1 2 3 4 5

7. If one expects good things to happen, they are usually right.
1 2 3 4 5

8. I like most people.
1 2 3 4 5

9. I feel that I am achieving my goals.
1 2 3 4 5

10. I am close to three or more people.
1 2 3 4 5

11. I am capable of solving my problems.
1 2 3 4 5

12. People seem to like me.
1 2 3 4 5

13. I have one or more hobbies that I enjoy.
1 2 3 4 5

14. My friends are there for me when I need them.
1 2 3 4 5

15. Though no job is perfect, I enjoy my career.
1 2 3 4 5

Add up your scores for each question.

50 - 75
You are practically Pollyanna. Life is an exciting adventure filled with possibilities. Optimism is often a self-fulfilling prophecy so you may in fact have better “luck” than others. You have a zest for life that is contagious. People are drawn by your cheerfulness and leave your company feeling more optimistic.

25 - 49
You are on the fence, not optimistic, but not weighted down by dark fears and predictions. If you would like to raise your score, spend more time with upbeat people. Read books and watch movies that make you feel good about yourself and your fellow travellers in this great adventure we call LIFE. Focus on the joys you encounter and your score will go through the roof. Be aware of your negative thoughts, they too are self-fulfilling.

1 - 24
You are feeling melancholy, aren’t you? Try looking for and taking note of joyful experiences. Follow the suggestions above and if you don’t feel considerably more hopeful for the future, consider consulting a mental health professional. You deserve to enjoy your life.

We are a fitness related site no doubt, but it’s not quite about swapping exercise routines. Rather, we propose to serve as a notepad for myriad thoughts on the techniques of setting and conducting work outs, investigating further into the nature and concepts behind the universally acclaimed and sometimes elusive “Good Workout” and create seasoned fitness training professionals to meet the requirements that this industry is poised to generate. One of the reasons why we encourage user participation right from the beginning to create a forum that will truly enrich the purpose of our endeavour.

Off late, we have found the process of creating and offering classes to future professionals more satisfying than merely coaching clients one on one. To organisations like us, every professional that we create is a painstakingly compiled miniature, somewhat like the little grain of rice with stuff carved on it that you see at many gift shops in India. To the clueless passer-by, a bowl of such rice grains might just be that - a bowl of rice grains. But to the appreciative eye, it is the carving on it that makes the bowl of rice invaluable. It is with this approach that BAR has seen a spate of registrations and new session launches across important metros in India. Now BAR coaching classes are available at Chennai, Coimbatore, Banglaore, Delhi and very soon at Hyderabad. Please stay tuned to know more about the developments at BAR and to be a part of the fitness revolution.
Cheers from The BAR counter

When it comes to lifting weights, everyone has an opinion. One day you hear heaving heavy weights will leave you looking like a linebacker (it won’t). The next day, rumor has it that supermodel limbs are a mere 10 minutes away thanks to the Miracle Machine du jour (not in this lifetime). The fact is, those little hand weights aren’t the only dumbbells lurking around your gym. If all this conflicting information is enough to make you burn your jog bra and bag working out altogether, fear not: We sought out two of the most in-the-know pros in the fitness industry to clear up your confusion once and for all.

1. If you lift weights, you’ll bulk up. “It’s physiologically impossible,” says Michael Wood, director of the Sports Performance Group in Cambridge, Mass., and an exercise physiologist at Tufts Research Center on Aging. The reason? Testosterone is responsible for a muscle’s bulk, and women simply don’t have enough of this predominantly male hormone to build Schwarzenegger-sized bulges. “Because muscle is denser than fat, strength training actually makes muscles shapelier,” Wood says.

2. Weightlifting will get rid of saddlebags and any other unsightly bulges. If you buy that, rumor has it there’s a Chiseled Cheekbones Through Self-Hypnosis franchise looking for investors. The sorry truth is that there is no such thing as “spot reduction.” If you have a ripple here or a bulge there, your only recourse is to reduce fat all over. The best way is with a combination of cardiovascular exercise and strength training, says Norm Meltzer, a former competitive weightlifter. Here’s why: Regular aerobic exercise burns calories and helps melt flab. Combine it with strength training (via free weights or weight machines), and you’ll beef up your lean muscle mass, turning your body into a round-the-clock calorie-burning factory. (Experts estimate you need to take in an extra 50 to 60 calories per day just to maintain each pound of muscle you add to your frame.) “Area-specific exercises can improve appearance,” Meltzer says, by tightening underlying muscles. “But it’s wishful thinking that you can choose where to burn fat.”

3. In order to see results, you need to work every muscle individually. Not only is it unnecessary to work each of your more than 600 muscles separately, you actually get a better workout (as in faster results in less time) by performing compound moves. Think squats, lunges, dips, push-ups. “Multijoint movements burn way more calories than single-joint exercises, so you get double the bang for your buck,” says Wood. Another benefit: Unlike single-joint exercises (like a biceps curl or leg extension), compound moves mimic activities you’re likely to perform in everyday life. This greatly reduces the chance you’ll pull a muscle performing simple tasks like vacuuming or hauling groceries.

4. You need to eat a lot more protein if you lift weights. Your recent Perdue stock purchase aside, probably not. “The RDA protein requirement is .8 grams for each kilogram of body weight [1 kilogram equals 2.2 pounds],” says Wood. “With athletes, the number is only slightly higher, at around 1 gram per kilo.” For a 130-pound woman, that translates into roughly 47 to 60 grams of protein a day. According to Wood, your liver and kidneys can only assimilate so much protein. Despite the pasta phobia that seems to be sweeping the nation, if you’re underconsuming anything, it’s probably healthy carbohydrates such as fruits, veggies, whole grains, rice, cereal, and juices — all key nutrients for muscle building. “Carbs are our bodies’ main source of fuel and should make up between 50 percent to 60 percent of your total caloric intake,” Wood says. “Without adequate amounts, you may have difficulty sustaining a workout.”

5. For maximum definition, the more repetitions of each exercise, the better. Au contraire, mes soeurs. “The only way you will ever see gains in strength, size, or power is by taking a muscle to momentary fatigue,” Wood says. That means that you have to lift a challenging weight. “Once you can easily perform 12 repetitions of an exercise, increase the weight by 5 percent.” Meltzer adds that as a part of a multidimensional approach to training, low-weight workouts aren’t entirely without merit: “Repetition builds endurance, which is important — especially if you participate in a sport,” he says. In general, try to do at least two sets of each exercise and use a weight that’s heavy enough so that you can barely lift it by the end of the second set.

6. If you stop working out, your muscles will turn to fat. Think apples and oranges: Fat and muscle are two different substances, and one cannot, will not, and has not ever turned into the other. Less of one simply means more room for the other. “When you stop using your muscles, your body becomes significantly less efficient at burning calories, which allows the pounds, in the form of fat, to creep back on,” Wood says. If, say, a 150-pound woman stopped strength training, she may continue to see the same number when she steps on the scale, but her ratio of fat to muscle will shift dramatically. Women who work out with weights can slow the 10 percent loss of strength per decade that occurs in women who don’t train with weights.

There is a belief in the health and fitness industries and amongst the general public that you have to perform lots of cardiovascular exercise to achieve health and/or weight loss.

However, this is not true. In fact, great benefits can be achieved with shorter duration higher intensity exercise. Also, cardiovascular training can in some instances be detrimental to health.

Cardiovascular (also known as aerobic) training is exercise that can be done for longer durations without stopping. Any activity that can be done for longer than 1 minute without having to pause requires predominantly oxygen as fuel. The word aerobic means ‘with oxygen’.

After an exercise session is terminated, oxygen consumption (calories) decreases with time and returns to resting levels. The elevated oxygen consumption following exercise is termed EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption).

EPOC is influenced more by intensity than duration and consequently one minute of high intensity exercise can produce an equal or greater EPOC than twenty minutes of low-moderate intensity exercise.

By completing multiple minutes separated by rest from exercise, one is able to benefit from this elevated metabolism more than once. One study compared the one-minute bout of intense exercise with twenty minutes of moderate intensity exercise, it was discovered that only four one-minute bouts of intense exercise would be required to exceed the total oxygen consumption of a twenty-minute bout of moderate (60% maxHR) intensity exercise.

The research data showed that the one-minute bouts of intense stepping on the X-iser Machine™ used an average of 46.7 Cals/min compared to only 9.3 Cals/min for a twenty-minute bout of typical aerobic exercise.

A thorough review of the literature clearly demonstrates that the general population can obtain numerous health benefits, as much if not more, from high-intensity intermittent exercise as compared to “traditional aerobic” training.

Further, it is clear that there are significant misconceptions about the role of intensity and duration of exercise upon cardiovascular adaptation, energy expenditure, fat metabolism, and weight loss. Athletes may also benefit by substituting some low-moderate intensity training with high-intensity interval training to further improve adaptation to lactate production, while not diminishing their aerobic capacity. Further research is needed to elucidate the long term benefits of The Short Bout Exercise Program, however current knowledge suggests it to be a useful addition to exercise training.

In addition, when you perform cardiovascular exercise, you raise levels of Glucocorticoids, which are tissue destroying hormones. To maintain health and optimum weight you need to keep as much muscle tissue as possible. Therefore, excess cardiovascular exercise can lead to a reduction in muscle tissue, metabolic rate and overall health.

In my own clinic I have no cardiovascular equipment and my clients improve their health and optimise their weight with resistance training, walking outdoors, eating correctly for their metabolic type and reducing overall stresses.

Food for thought, In health and happiness

Cheers

hi everyone, this is the site where you can really look for a dotted line in your fitness careers, like how to scale up in your profession

Basu
partner director - Bar
CEO- MAVERICK CHAIN OF GYMS
TRAINER - NATIONAL CRICKET ACADEMY
FITNESS CONSULTANT - CHEMPLAST

Time: 6 a.m. Place: A large park in a city. At one end is a group of middle-aged people practising yoga, while another determined lot huff and puff as they walk and jog around the perimeter. Switch to a nearby fitness centre. In the basement, a group of 30 men and women are moving in perfect co-ordination in a high-impact aerobics class under the watchful gaze of their instructor. While in the gym above, another bunch of fitness freaks are pumping iron and working on their abs to the beat of a chart-topper.

Being fit has never been so popular, or as necessary as it is today. With millions of people eager to lose weight and get in shape, fitness training is one of the fastest growing careers in the health and fitness industry today. The demand for professionals like aerobics instructors, yoga instructors and personal and corporate trainers is catapulting upwards.

There was a time when the only people using personal trainers were professional athletes who needed help for injury management or excelling at their sport. Today people from all walks of life – from celebrities to senior citizens – are using personal trainers to help them learn how to exercise, lose weight, maintain all round fitness and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

The Work
As a fitness trainer you will train people in different aspects of physical fitness and help the obese and sedentary get into shape. You will instruct or coach groups or individuals in various exercise routines (weights, aerobics, and flexibility training), besides monitoring their progress through methods such as BMI (body mass index) and cardiovascular levels. If required, you will also give them basic advice on health and nutrition. You will demonstrate the correct use of various training apparatus and gadgets such as trampolines, weights, rowing machines, etc.

Your professional training and experience will also equip you to design specific programmes for different people – keeping in mind their age, lifestyle and health parameters. Suggest forward-bending exercises to someone with a spinal problem and you’ll only end up worsening the situation – making your poor client double up with pain!

Fitness trainers work in gyms, big hotels, health clubs, fitness centres, spas, tourist resorts and even cruiseliners. After gaining some experience you could choose to run your own fitness centre. Another lucrative option today is to organise workplace wellness and fitness programmes for large companies. Increasingly, companies are laying great emphasis on physical fitness over and above the fiscal fitness of the organisation. They are offering their employees the facility of a well-equipped company gym where as a fitness trainer you could be advising top-notch executives how to stay in good shape.
Because gyms and health clubs offer a whole variety of exercise routines such as weightlifting, aerobics, karate, kickboxing, spin cycling, yoga, pilates or tai chi, you can choose to specialise in the areas you are comfortable with.

Let’s take a look at some of the different kinds of work you could be doing as part of the fitness industry:

Fitness trainers help clients assess their level of physical fitness and help them set and reach fitness goals. They also demonstrate various exercise routines and help clients improve their technique. They also keep records of their clients’ exercise sessions to analyse their progress and physical fitness.

Personal trainers work with clients on a one-on-one basis with celebrities and others who like privacy while they work out — either at a gym or at the client’s home. The workout is specially tailored to suit the client’s specific health and fitness requirements. Obviously, you would prescribe a far more exacting routine for a football player or swimmer as compared to that for a film star or company honcho.

Aerobics instructors conduct group workout sessions that involve aerobics, stretching and muscle conditioning exercises. You could even conduct these classes in a gym or at your own studio.

Sports instructors coach professional and non-professional athletes on an individual basis. They organise, instruct, train and lead athletes specialising in indoor and outdoor sports or self-defence training such as judo and karate. Using their expertise in the sport, sports instructors evaluate the fitness level of the athlete and the athlete’s opponents to devise a competitive game strategy.

Yoga and naturopathy experts work in yoga or fitness institutes and in hospitals as consultants or instructors. Similarly, you could also work as a personal trainer for the well-heeled client who does not have the time or desire to go to a public gym or for someone suffering from a specific health problem. As more and more people look for holistic alternative cures and remedies that are natural and free from side effects, naturopathy and yoga have great promise.

Employment Opportunities
Today, fitness in India is a whopping Rs.2,000 crore industry and most fitness centres are swanky studios offering an array of fitness regimes such as aerobics, kickboxing, yoga, dancercise and other workouts with sophisticated machines. Moreover, be it at home or at the fitness centre having a qualified trainer has become the ‘in-thing’.

With gyms and health clubs mushrooming all over the country, the demand for qualified instructors is going up sharply. And this spells good prospects for those aiming to pursue fitness as their career. Trainers with the ‘right’ qualification can teach just about anybody who can pay to be healthy and fit — from hardworking executives to the stressed-out CEOs, the politicians, the self-conscious student, the middle-aged housewife.

There are many factors driving the emergence of financial planners. For one, money decisions have become more

What it takes?
Understandably, the first essential for this profession is an athletic body and loads of energy. Apart from a love for fitness, you need to practice what you preach. You can’t possibly flaunt dark circles and a paunch, while exhorting your clients to pound the treadmill and do fifty push-ups! As a fitness instructor you will also need to keep abreast of the latest developments in health science.

Besides a good physique and determination to spend long hours in spandex, you must have good knowledge of human anatomy, diet, nutrition and other health and fitness related matters.

You also need to be innovative enough to vary the exercise routine to avoid monotony and boredom. Make sure you introduce an element of “fun”, taking care to devise an upper and lower body workout that exercises all muscle groups uniformly.
To learn the basics, you will need to enrol for a professional training programme. But treat the course as a mere kick-off point. Keep reading up on fitness and experiment continuously — there’s no end to learning in this field as new research and equipment keeps hitting the headlines.

After finishing the course you can start with assisting a senior Aerobics Instructor before you start taking your own classes or become a personal instructor.

Good communication and interpersonal skills will hold you in good stead, as you have to deal with all kinds of people.

What you’ll make?
With the high premium placed on physical fitness and appearances, it pays to be fit… and help others become fit too!

While the pay may be a little low to start with, as you gain experience and develop a personal style and rapport your take-home dramatically improves. Of course the most lucrative jobs going are those of a personal trainer to the rich and famous, and those with high-end fitness centres, spas and resorts.

Once you’ve acquired a reputation, you could also be conducting one of the numerous fitness programmes or health shows on popular TV channels. Besides boosting your popularity, it will also augment your clientele.

– Courtsey — TimesJobs — For Career enhancement contact the experts @ BAR –