Personal Trainer Secrets Issue Feb 12 2007

Fitness Article of the Week
How to Work Out Like a Celebrity

Pilates, yoga, cardio, and weight training are favorite workout routines for many celebrities.

Stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Julia Roberts, and even Kenney Chesney, state that Pilates is always a favorite among the exercise routines they and other celebrities use to maintain their trim, fit bodies. Pilates consists of more than 450 different stretches and moves that improve one’s posture, increase flexibility, and have even proven to be a good way to relieve stress, when performed regularly.

When celebrities are asked about their favorite exercise routines, the word: “yoga” often comes up. This ancient art of slow stretching movements, concentrated breathing, and meditation exercises improves the fluidity of joints, strengthens muscles, reduces stress, and helps the participant to connect with their inner-self for a complete exercise routine of the mind, body, and spirit.

Many celebrities enjoy exercise routines that include a lot of cardio. In fact, stars like Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, and Jessica Simpson have all said their favorite exercise routines include time on the treadmill or stair climber for a good cardio workout. Cardio is great for everyone, not just celebrities. To get the most benefits from it, though, cardio should be done 3 to 5 times a week.

Actor Tom Cruise doesn’t need a lot of fancy equipment for one of his favorite exercise routines – walking. Friends say that Cruise seems to always be on the move, which certainly has been documented in many a photograph. Whether walking briskly through an airport on his way to his next film location, or walking down a sidewalk surrounded by frenzied fans, Cruises walks his way to the firm, fit body his female fans just cannot get enough of.

Other celebrities devote themselves to weight training as the exercise they most often choose to help them maintain those Hollywood-hot bodies. Celebrities such as Brad Pitt, J-Lo, P. Diddy, and LL Cool J are just a few such celebrities who claim that weight training is their favorite way to maintain their fabulous physiques.

Can you guess the favorite exercise of comedic actor, Steve Martins? Inline skating! That’s right; the now 61-year-old Martin regularly dons a pair of skates to keep himself in shape. Although you might consider inline skating better suited to a much younger crowd, Martin is so comfortable and confident on his Roller Blades that he often outskates those half his age. Other celebrities are also finding that inline skating is a fun way to stay in tip-top shape.

Some celebrities find it hard to name just one exercise as their favorite, when it comes to the exercise routines they most enjoy engaging in. These celebrities often like to switch things up a bit by choosing several different exercise routines a week to work different parts of their bodies, and to also keep from getting bored by doing the same exercise routines time after time.

There are, of course, a zillion exercise routines, either endorsed by or created by celebrities and made available on DVD and video. So it's hardly surprising to hear them choose as their favorite whichever workout video or DVD bears their likeness or testimonial.

Celebrities have to keep themselves quite fit, as the cameras are always aimed on them, and they know that people want to see their celebrities looking trim and sexy. All the exercise routines that are favorites among celebrities have one common thread – they all need to be performed regularly in order to create those toned, sexy bodies and to provide the most possible health benefits.

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Featured Exercise
Got Abs?

It's the million-dollar question: How do I get washboard abs? How do I get a fully defined sixpack? Whether you ever get the sixpack, it is extremely important to develop all of the abdominals, especially the lower abs, which in most cases haven’t been used in a very long time. Underactivity of the lower abs is why many women (and men) have that nice pouch hanging out below their belly buttons. When performing ab exercises, you should begin with the lower abs, followed by the oblique muscles (sides), and finishing with the upper abs. (Yes vary it up sometimes is good)

Like all muscles, the abdominals should be strengthened over their full range of motion (unless there is a limitation due to injury or other factors). Core work is very important, as well, to enable your abdominal muscles to function correctly.

The human body is remarkably adaptable and will easily acclimate to the demands of any given exercise. In order to see measurable and consistent results from your exercise regimen, the muscles — including the abdominals — continually need different stimulus. Therefore, there is no “best” exercise to specifically work the abdominal muscles. The main point of ab training is to twist and flex the abs in a way that targets all the different abdominal muscles:

Lower abdominals
Internal and external obliques
Upper abdominals
Transverse abdoninus

Abdominal muscles such as the rectus abdominals and internal and external obliques are mainly fast-twitch fibers. This means they work best when performing explosive movements. The body uses them for things like throwing, jumping, and sprinting.

Ab Exercise Regimen

Use fewer reps (6 to 12 per set) and more weight.
More reps is not better.
When performing 6 to 12 reps, maximize the benefits for developing larger abdominal muscles, defining them so you can see the abs better.
Add more sets, not more reps.
It is less beneficial to perform thousands of crunches in a row. Completing your sets, and adding more, if you desire, will work better every time than doing more reps in one long set.
Add more weight, not more reps.
The goal is for the abdominal muscles to hypertrophy (grow). This is best accomplished by using heavier weights and performing fewer reps.
Add more weight, not more reps.
Rest for between 30 and 120 seconds to fully recover the muscle.
fewer reps (6 or less) will develop greater abdominal strength — although this isn’t the best method for developing larger abdominals.
Use perfect form for your training cycle.

Good abdominal exercise includes proper training and form. You must always maintain good form throughout your training cycle. This means doing each exercise correctly while bearing as much weight as possible for the rep. The best way to ensure you are performing each exercise correctly is to hire a professional trainer. A secondary option is to buy a good-quality video. Abdominal Training would be a great choice.

If your psoas (hip flexors) are taking over the bulk of the work during your abdominal training, you typically have a faulty recruitment pattern which you need to correct in order to start achieving great-looking abs. It’s essential to asses you abdominal muscles to determine whether they are recruiting (turning on) in the right order. Your muscles are supposed to activate in a particular sequence. If they do not follow that sequence, your abdominals and other muscles are compensating, which will ultimately overdevelop certain muscles and leave others undeveloped, making your physique less symmetrical.

No matter what, make sure you do the exercises properly. Doing them incorrectly will cause far more harm than good. It is recommended that you receive at least a periodic assessment to see if your abdominal muscles are functioning correctly. To find a qualified Corrective Exercise Kinesiologist who can assess your abs and TVA, click HERE.

Don’t forget, though: Losing the fat is your quickest way to a tighter, slimmer waistline.

You should work your abdominal muscles 3 to 4 times per week. Then, it’s a good idea to give them one to two days of complete rest. If you train your abs one day but they are still sore the next time you’ve scheduled to train them, skip the ab workout that day. Rest until they are no longer sore. You should never work out the muscle if it is sore. Allow it to fully recover before you blast your abdominal muscles again. The last thing you want to do is have your muscles inhibit (shut themselves off) because they’re experiencing pain when you try to use them because you have not allowed enough time for rest. Rest and wait until the soreness passes.

An alternate pattern would be to separate out each set of abdominal muscles. For example, you would work your lower abs on Monday, obliques on Tuesday, and upper abdominals on Wednesday. Following this pattern, you would rest each set of abdominal muscles for two days — so that on Thursday, you could work you lower abdominal muscles, beginning the cycle again.

Ask Scott White | Personal Trainer

Question
What's with all the hype about bottled water lately? Isn't water just water? Can it make that big of a difference if I drink tap water or buy expensive bottled water?

Scott Responds

You would think that water is water, right? However, this is not true at all! All water is not created equally.

Of course, way-back when, the water provided by nature was in its purest form. It was free from today's pollutants, caused by a number of factors in the air and soil, which then make their way into our oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams.

In many communities, it isn’t really advisable to drink water straight from the tap because tiny microbial organisms can find their way into the water that comes from the faucets. These microbial teeny-weenies don’t usually cause problems for people with healthy immune systems. But those with immune systems weakened by chronic disease, poor nutrition, lack of adequate exercise, and other factors could become sick from drinking unfiltered water. Children can also become sick from drinking unfiltered water because a child’s immune system isn’t yet fully developed and may not be strong enough to combat these microbial organisms.

To prevent these micro-organisms from making their way into your cup of water, install a filter on your faucet to trap and kill them. You can find filters at your local hardware, home and chain stores. The Internet also offers a wealth of filter choices with good deals on pricing and shipping.

So how about that bottled water? Here too, not all water is the same. The many choices are enough to make a person dizzy! Plain, distilled, spring-fed, with added flavoring (made either with pure sugar or sugar substitutes), or loaded with electrolytes, minerals – and now even with appetite suppressants and energy boosters!

Don’t be fooled by the manufacturers' clever packaging. Just as you carefully read food labels to ensure you’re making the healthiest food choices, the same applies when buying bottled water. Check the label and look for the percentage of spring-fed water the product actually contains.

Stay away from flavored water made with high-fructose corn syrup. Sure, it tastes really good; but high-fructose corn syrup is just a fancy name for sugar, which adds needless calories and absolutely no nutritional value to your water.

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