“Sometimes you will have significant soreness after a workout and sometimes you won’t.  It should be pointed out that if you are sore after a workout, this doesn’t mean that growth has taken place after the soreness goes away. It simply means that you are no longer sore nor that you’re ready to train again. Most often you will find soreness occurring in movements occurring over a bony prominence. For instance, it’s not uncommon for a trainee to experience soreness the day after a workout in which the Leg Press had been performed.  In such instances, the trainee will experience soreness in the buttock muscles heavily involved, but also the buttocks are contracting while actively being pulled taut over the protuberance of the ischial tuberosity [a fancy way of saying "your butt muscles are being stretched over a sharp part of the hip"]… In other words, the soreness that is prodcued after a workout doesn’t necessarily have a correlation with anything. The truth is that soreness is not a valid measure of anything but soreness.  You could make your biceps sore simply by working them over with a ball-peen hammer, but that would’nt necessarily correlate with anything productive having been stimulated. We understand that a degree of soreness can make you feel like you’ve been worked and that something has happened and, consequently, can be a positive workout experience for a lot of people- but please do not take it to be the only measure of a workout’s effectiveness because there is no data to correlate that notion at all. The only way you can determine if yo’ve made progress is whether or not your workout chart
indicates that you are stronger.”

So there you have it. Soreness is essentially meaningless unless you are simply trying to be sore. As the article says though, if that’s the case, head to the garage and beat your muscles into a pulp with a hammer. That would pretty much guarantee soreness (as a legal aside, please no one actually do this. I can’t really afford any lawsuits).

I sincerely hope that clarified a couple things. I think the biggest concern voiced lately has been by the new folks who were put through some pretty rough paces and then awoke the next day with little to no soreness in their body.

Submitted by: Alex Kissinger (Personal Fitness Coach)

Our workout is really hard for a reason.  Exercise isn’t supposed to be fun.  In fact, at Exercise Inc we intentionally take the fun out, leaving nothing but 20 minutes of good hard work.

But let’s consider what you get for only 20 minutes of your time.  You increase strength and endurance and you build a lot of muscle.  All three of these benefits are pretty much one in the same.

As a result of building stronger muscles you also build stronger bones, tendons and ligaments, which helps prevent injury.

Another benefit of our 20 minute workout is an improved cardiovascular system.  The most efficient way to improve the cardiovascular system is to find the best way to strengthen the muscular system.  The vascular system exists to service working muscles, so stronger muscles will require your body to create a more efficient vascular system.

Also 20 minutes of gut wrenching exercise at Exercise Inc will increase your metabolism.  The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn.  Everyone knows that, but there is another calorie burning benefit to our workout that most people don’t realize.  It takes a lot of calories to recover from and build stronger muscles as a result of our workout.

There is another big benefit you receive as a result of working so hard for 20 minutes a week – you get your life back.  Because we only want you to exercise for 20 minutes, you have 167 hours and 40 minutes of your week left to live your life.  That means more time for your kids, your spouse, your friends and all the other things you enjoy doing.

If you like to golf, you can get better at it because you’re not spending 5 hours a week in the gym.  If you enjoy gardening, you have more time to grow vegetables.  You even get more time for work . . . it that’s your thing.

So, next time you’re thinking about canceling your appointment.  Think about everything you get from just 20 minutes a week.

In the 17 years we have been in business we have always gotten great results for our clients, but in the last 5 years those results have been better than I ever imagined. What is more amazing is how our approach has changed.

I used to require clients to strength train 3 times a week and do “cardio” for minimum of 30 minutes at least five times a week.
I have always tried to make our program better, which is what got us to our current exercise program of 20 minutes once a week.

I used to ask our weight loss clients to keep a journal in which they recorded everything they ate and counted every calorie and every gram of fat. No one wanted to count calories, so that approach didn’t work.

It took me long time to understand that we needed to get people to change their habits. Since we introduced our Healthy Habits program 3 years ago our fat loss success has increased dramatically.

We are still constantly trying to improve our program, and because of that you may have noticed your coach is starting to give you some different advice about nutrition. We are gaining a better understanding of some very important aspects of nutrition.

We want to pass this new information on to you. There is really fun video on YouTube that I would like all of our clients to watch to gain a better understanding of where we are going with our Healthy Habits.

Click Here to check out the video!

Last April we were fortunate enough to have Body By Science author, Dr. Doug McGuff, visit us to do a lecture and a book signing.  The great thing about Dr. McGuff is the fact that he is an emergency room physician who has a passion for high intensity strength training. 

In his lecture he offered a lot of information that isn’t in his book about fat loss, strength training and health in general.  You may be surprised to hear some of Dr. McGuff’s views on nutrition. 

As a gift to all of you who receive our newsletter I have posted a link below for you to view Dr. McGuff’s presentation online.  This link will only work for the next 30 days, so watch it soon.   Also, feel free to forward this newsletter to any of your friends who might be on the fence about Exercise Inc.

Here’s the link.  Enjoy!

Click here for Video

 People who win at anything have written goals. Goals are simply what you trying to hit. Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”

Good goals stretch you. They make you reach for something that’s just beyond your reach. 

In order to make a goal happen you should have to become a better person in some aspect of your life. You have to be deliberate and happen to it!

 Too many people just sorta have an idea of what they wanna do, and they kinda get started on it January 1^st.  That’s the wrong approach to have when you want to really accomplish something.

Decide what you want to accomplish in 2010 and deliberately write your plans on paper.  Then roll up your sleeves and get to work.

 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  Hebrews 12:11

This could be the year you finally lose that 10 pounds, get out of debt or take that Caribbean vacation.  Or maybe it’s the year you do all three.

Let’s get to work, reach for the stars and accomplish our goals.

For most of us it means lots of opportunities to eat.  The average American gains 3 to 5 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years.  It’s not the feast you have for your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner that causes the weight gain; it’s constant consumption of extra calories throughout the season.

So here are a few quick tips to help you make through the holidays without any extra baggage.

1. Plan to have a couple of all out feasts.   That’s right, just get it out your system and eat any and everything you want for one or two meals (not days).

2.  Don’t keep leftover cookies, pies, candy or cakes around after your one meal feast is over.  It’s the snacking on these items throughout the holidays that causes the weight gain.

3.  Always go for the veggie or fruit tray if you are at a party.  If you can, take a veggie or fruit tray to the party.

4. Drink plenty of water.  If you are drinking alcohol, drink one large glass of ice water for every alcoholic beverage.

If you haven’t read the book Body by Science, you are missing the best material ever published on the subject of exercise.  The author, Dr. Doug McGuff, is an emergency room physician who also owns his own personal training studio.

In the book Dr. McGuff shares some of the latest research on exercise and explains how this research relates to the average person who simply wants to improve their quality of life through safe, efficient exercise.

Dr. McGuff believes a strength training program of 4 to 6 exercises performed to complete exhaustion once a week is best way for everyone to exercise.  Hmm! That’s the same program we’ve been using at Exercise Inc for almost 6 years.   In the book, Dr. McGuff spends a lot of time explaining the science behind why our program works and what the benefits of the program can be.

We were fortunate enough to have Dr. McGuff come to Indianapolis in April for a lecture and a book signing. When he was here I was able to do an interview with him about the book that can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahIKTdJaXPE.

If you would like to purchase Dr. McGuff’s book, you can find it on Amazon, at your local bookstore or just come in to Exercise Inc.

If you are in the area, please stop in to see our new Zionsville location. It’s on Michigan Road, just north of 106^th street.