By Tanya Bogusky, Innovative Registered Massage Therapist
Sports massage is effective because of the beneficial physiological and psychological effects that are derived from the massage. Specifically, sports massage treatments enable the athlete in training to work out and recover more efficiently.
During any excercise, as a muscle contracts to do the work, its fibers shorten and glide together allowing the muscles and tendon to broaden. In sport's massage, compression and friction techniques imitate this broadening to help create more pliability of the connective tissues and eliminaating restrictions in the broadening of the muscle.
Benefits Include:
-maintaining and increaseing flexibility
-improving the body's allignment
-speeds recovery after an exhausting workout
-reduces stiffness and soreness from training
-increased circulation
-reduces injury
-helps to increase strength
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Nutrition
By Innovative Nutrition Department
Typically, the cold winter months are the time of year when we let our health habits slide. We over eat comfort foods, drink too many calorie laden Starbucks, and lower our activity level, all of which contribute to weight gain and a general feeling of sluggishness.
We all know that ‘the last ten pounds’ can be the hardest to lose, but ironically we still pack them on every year and spend spring trying to get rid of them before summer. We also know that what and how much we eat are major factors in how much we weigh. There are some key habits that will help you achieve your spring health goals. Try following these for the month of February and you’ll be hooked on feeling better!
1. Eat a Healthy Diet: revamping your diet can be tough, so you need to remove the temptations. Clean your fridge and food cupboards – toss out the high calorie, high fat and processed, then stock up on lean proteins, fruits, vegetables and grains. An ‘all or nothing’ approach is unrealistic for many of us, so buy a few treats during your weekly shopping trip. Use them as just that – a treat – and don’t buy more when you run out.
2. Skip the Refined Foods: most processed breads and cereals contain very little fibre, which is what makes you fill up and not out. Plus, foods rich in fibre take longer to digest helping to control blood glucose and insulin levels. Limit your intake of potatoes (yes, this means fries and snack chips as well), white bread, low fibre cereals, white pasta and rice, and of course all those sugary snacks like cookies and cakes. For the month, try switching to grain cereals, whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta and brown or wild rice – you’ll actually enjoy them over their refined counterparts.
3. Exercise: get on track with a program that includes cardio and strength training. You need both for a healthy heart and to build the muscle you need for strong bones and to keep your metabolism burning.
4. Get your ZZZs: sleep deprivation can slow weight loss or cause weight gain because it can raise glucose and insulin levels. This is not a good state for your body to be in because surplus insulin boosts body-fat storage. Aim for seven to nine hours per night and try to make it the same hours every night so your body gets use to the schedule.
5. Drink Up (sorry folks, we’re talking about water here): water will help you lose weight because it flushes out the waste products your body makes when it breaks down fat for energy or processes protein. It also transports nutrients to your muscles, aids digestion and keeps your metabolism up. Drink at least eight full glasses per day. Tip: Clear or light yellow urine is a sign of good hydration.
6. Eat Enough (again, we’re talking about the good stuff): cutting too many calories pushes the body to conserve calories rather than burn them. It also causes your body to start breaking down muscle to fuel its vital operations. Since muscle is the key to your metabolism (speed at which you burn calories), eating too little can negate all the hard work you put into your training sessions and prohibit weigh loss (or even cause weight gain). Caloric needs are very individual and for the average person can range from 1200 to 2500 calories (height, weight and activity level are key factors.). A consultation with a nutritionist to determine your personal needs is a good idea.
7. Don’t Inhale Your Food: slow down and give your brain time to tell your body it is full.
8. Adopt a Regular Eating Schedule: want your body to be a calorie burning machine? Keep it fueled. As is the case with eating too little, if you wait too long between meals and snacks your metabolism slows. Bottom line, don’t skip meals! Eat three balanced meals and two or three healthy snacks every day. Don’t go more than 4 to 5 hours without eating. If your schedule is hectic keep easy to eat snacks like fruit, yogurt cups and almonds on hand.
9. Get Outside: outdoor activity is great for the body, mind and soul. Not only will it help you shed the winter pounds, but it is a spring clean for the mind! Aim to move outside at least two to three times per week – run, walk, bike, hike – even if it is 20 minutes at the end of your day, it is another great habit you’ll love being hooked on.
You didn’t develop bad habits overnight. Don’t expect to trade them for better ones in a week. It takes several weeks of repeating the same action for it to become habit. After a month of consciously incorporating these tips into your life, you’ll be well on your way to a healthy lifestyle. Get started now.
Typically, the cold winter months are the time of year when we let our health habits slide. We over eat comfort foods, drink too many calorie laden Starbucks, and lower our activity level, all of which contribute to weight gain and a general feeling of sluggishness.
We all know that ‘the last ten pounds’ can be the hardest to lose, but ironically we still pack them on every year and spend spring trying to get rid of them before summer. We also know that what and how much we eat are major factors in how much we weigh. There are some key habits that will help you achieve your spring health goals. Try following these for the month of February and you’ll be hooked on feeling better!
1. Eat a Healthy Diet: revamping your diet can be tough, so you need to remove the temptations. Clean your fridge and food cupboards – toss out the high calorie, high fat and processed, then stock up on lean proteins, fruits, vegetables and grains. An ‘all or nothing’ approach is unrealistic for many of us, so buy a few treats during your weekly shopping trip. Use them as just that – a treat – and don’t buy more when you run out.
2. Skip the Refined Foods: most processed breads and cereals contain very little fibre, which is what makes you fill up and not out. Plus, foods rich in fibre take longer to digest helping to control blood glucose and insulin levels. Limit your intake of potatoes (yes, this means fries and snack chips as well), white bread, low fibre cereals, white pasta and rice, and of course all those sugary snacks like cookies and cakes. For the month, try switching to grain cereals, whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta and brown or wild rice – you’ll actually enjoy them over their refined counterparts.
3. Exercise: get on track with a program that includes cardio and strength training. You need both for a healthy heart and to build the muscle you need for strong bones and to keep your metabolism burning.
4. Get your ZZZs: sleep deprivation can slow weight loss or cause weight gain because it can raise glucose and insulin levels. This is not a good state for your body to be in because surplus insulin boosts body-fat storage. Aim for seven to nine hours per night and try to make it the same hours every night so your body gets use to the schedule.
5. Drink Up (sorry folks, we’re talking about water here): water will help you lose weight because it flushes out the waste products your body makes when it breaks down fat for energy or processes protein. It also transports nutrients to your muscles, aids digestion and keeps your metabolism up. Drink at least eight full glasses per day. Tip: Clear or light yellow urine is a sign of good hydration.
6. Eat Enough (again, we’re talking about the good stuff): cutting too many calories pushes the body to conserve calories rather than burn them. It also causes your body to start breaking down muscle to fuel its vital operations. Since muscle is the key to your metabolism (speed at which you burn calories), eating too little can negate all the hard work you put into your training sessions and prohibit weigh loss (or even cause weight gain). Caloric needs are very individual and for the average person can range from 1200 to 2500 calories (height, weight and activity level are key factors.). A consultation with a nutritionist to determine your personal needs is a good idea.
7. Don’t Inhale Your Food: slow down and give your brain time to tell your body it is full.
8. Adopt a Regular Eating Schedule: want your body to be a calorie burning machine? Keep it fueled. As is the case with eating too little, if you wait too long between meals and snacks your metabolism slows. Bottom line, don’t skip meals! Eat three balanced meals and two or three healthy snacks every day. Don’t go more than 4 to 5 hours without eating. If your schedule is hectic keep easy to eat snacks like fruit, yogurt cups and almonds on hand.
9. Get Outside: outdoor activity is great for the body, mind and soul. Not only will it help you shed the winter pounds, but it is a spring clean for the mind! Aim to move outside at least two to three times per week – run, walk, bike, hike – even if it is 20 minutes at the end of your day, it is another great habit you’ll love being hooked on.
You didn’t develop bad habits overnight. Don’t expect to trade them for better ones in a week. It takes several weeks of repeating the same action for it to become habit. After a month of consciously incorporating these tips into your life, you’ll be well on your way to a healthy lifestyle. Get started now.
Comfortable
By Stan Peake Innovative's GM
The word ‘comfortable’ has a lot of connotations, and most are very positive. When we think of comfortable, we often think of relaxation, our favorite couch, spending down time with people we enjoy, or ‘comfort food’ at the end of a stressful day. Maybe cozying up close to the fireplace with hot chocolate on a winter day.
In any event, for the purposes of realizing our fitness goals- ‘comfort’ can also be detrimental. Specifically, choosing to remain within one’s comfort zones can put up barriers in terms of what a person will try, or how hard they are willing to work to achieve those goals.
A ‘comfortable’ working pace for most people is usually between 70 and 75% of their maximum heart rate. At this workload, the heart rate is increased and we are burning calories, but not at a rate consistent with most of our goals. This workload translates to what is called “long slow distance” training, and is best suited to endurance training which should generally be done for longer than an hour – possibly as long as many hours (6+) depending on goals.
For those of us that have goals of making big changes to our fitness level and body composition, we have to learn how to be comfortable getting outside our comfort zones, and working at higher intensities.
It’s also crucial we deviate from the norm and take on new things. Instead of 3 sets of 10 repetitions for each exercise – fitness based destinations such as hiking the Inca trail in Peru… hiking the Grand Canyon or West Coast Trail… biking in the mountains or in Moab, Utah… or multi-sports such as triathlons or adventure races… heli-skiing, the list goes on – all serve to provide variety, purpose for our gym-based training, and a sense of accomplishment.
While we all want a degree of comfort in our lives – we must also manage that with a sense of completion. Let’s all get outside our comfort zones a little more in 2009 and take something on that’s new, that scares us a little, and hopefully inspires us to do great things and see better results!
The word ‘comfortable’ has a lot of connotations, and most are very positive. When we think of comfortable, we often think of relaxation, our favorite couch, spending down time with people we enjoy, or ‘comfort food’ at the end of a stressful day. Maybe cozying up close to the fireplace with hot chocolate on a winter day.
In any event, for the purposes of realizing our fitness goals- ‘comfort’ can also be detrimental. Specifically, choosing to remain within one’s comfort zones can put up barriers in terms of what a person will try, or how hard they are willing to work to achieve those goals.
A ‘comfortable’ working pace for most people is usually between 70 and 75% of their maximum heart rate. At this workload, the heart rate is increased and we are burning calories, but not at a rate consistent with most of our goals. This workload translates to what is called “long slow distance” training, and is best suited to endurance training which should generally be done for longer than an hour – possibly as long as many hours (6+) depending on goals.
For those of us that have goals of making big changes to our fitness level and body composition, we have to learn how to be comfortable getting outside our comfort zones, and working at higher intensities.
It’s also crucial we deviate from the norm and take on new things. Instead of 3 sets of 10 repetitions for each exercise – fitness based destinations such as hiking the Inca trail in Peru… hiking the Grand Canyon or West Coast Trail… biking in the mountains or in Moab, Utah… or multi-sports such as triathlons or adventure races… heli-skiing, the list goes on – all serve to provide variety, purpose for our gym-based training, and a sense of accomplishment.
While we all want a degree of comfort in our lives – we must also manage that with a sense of completion. Let’s all get outside our comfort zones a little more in 2009 and take something on that’s new, that scares us a little, and hopefully inspires us to do great things and see better results!
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