Archive for April, 2012

Worth The Time??

Posted: April 23, 2012 by Eric at Prime in challenge, fat loss, fitness, health, lifestyle, muscle, Uncategorized, weight loss, wellness, womens' fitness
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This weekend I had a great time at my soon to be in laws home. Sunday morning  I was the first person awake(as usual) at about 5:30 a.m. I made my way down to the living room and decided to flip on the T.V. to catch anything to help me wake up a bit. As I surfed the channels, I was blown away at the number of “Fitness Infomercials”. It seemed every non major network had some form of health, fitness or beauty infomercial playing! Flat abs this, boost your butt that, burn all you need in 6 minutes a day and of course a few products to “reduce” fat and or cellulite! I knew all of this advertising was abundant, but was shocked at just how much was out there and the message it is sending.

As a fitness professional I was immediately disgusted at all of these items/programs that promise the easy road and the answer to all your fitness, health and beauty problems. I was originally going to blog about this insanity and more or less rant and rave about the lunacy that is the “easy road” to fitness. Instead, I decided to take a different approach. I want to begin The Prime Fitness Effectiveness Study. In this study, I want to reach out to YOU the reader and ask YOU which of these programs or products  you want to know the truth about. We will choose 10 products or programs and we will research each for its effectiveness, safety, validity and fun factor. Need examples

P90X, Insanity, AB Lounge, AB Rocker, Brazilian Butt Lift, The Shake Weight, Weight Watchers, etc…the list goes on and on and on. We will test each program/product in our exclusive Prime Fitness Laboratory and report back to you our findings!

I am opening the floor to you now!! Let me know what has your curiosity peaked. Respond by commenting to the blog and we will make our choices by May 1st.

Music and Exercise

Posted: April 4, 2012 by christyatprime in fitness, group exercise, health, inspiration, lifestyle, Uncategorized, weight loss
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It is rare these days to walk into a health club or to drive down the street without seeing an iPod in the ears of someone exercising.  In all honesty, I don’t know if I could make it through one of my runs without some type of tune pumping into my head.  But what are the effects of music on exercise?

I looked to Dr. Len Kravitz for some more information on this.  “In a well-designed study, Ellis and Brighouse (1952) noted that respiration rate increased significantly with the onset of jazz music and tends to return to pre-music levels with the cessation of music. Heart rate was only moderately effected by the introduction of the music. The average heart rate is between 72-80 beats per minute while music tempos may range from 70 to 170 beats per minute. A review of studies indicates that heart rate tends to only moderately follow the music; increasing in response to fast music and decreasing in response to slow music (Dainow, 1977) . Dainow cites several investigations that actually show any type of music (sedative or stimulative) will show a moderate increase in heart rate. Much of this increase in heart rate by all types of music can be explained due to the fact that music does produce some kind of emotional effect, thus increasing the heart rate.”

What are your thoughts on working out with or without music?  Do you benefit more from the energy?  Does it allow you to “keep time” throughout your workout?

As Confucius says, “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.”  So whether you like to pump the jams while you workout or you prefer silence, just KEEP MOVING!