My Philosophy

Resistance Training

When I design an exercise, I look at it from finger nail to toe nail. If at least 90% of your muscles are not involved in the exercise, then it is a waste of time if your goal is to develop overall strength. If you look up the word exercise in the dictionary you will find that it doesn’t say anything about sitting down. When we exercise, we should be using as many parts of our body as possible at one time — so stand up and move. Use a TRX Suspension System, dumbbells, tubing, bands, medicine balls, stability ball and balance tools to challenge your body in every different direction. If your goal is to maintain or lose body fat, then you need to focus on burning the most amount of calories possible at one time. With the use of free weights and the other forms of resistance that I have described, you will maximize your calorie burning potential by increasing your heart rate because you are not sitting down while using a machine. The other reason I am a firm believer in this type of training is that weight machines dictate the path of motion and do not allow our bodies to follow its' own natural path. The only time you will be required to do the movement of that machine is next week when you sit down and push or pull on that same machine. Our bodies move in three dimensional movements and yet most machines don't allow you to perform in 3D. The point is that when you exercise you should try to mimic real life situations that your body will perform at some point.

Nutrition & Movement

Calories in versus Calories out. That is what it's all about. Whether your goal is to lose body fat, increase muscle, maintain muscle or for sports performance. How we progress in fitness depends on the food we eat and the food we stay away from. Think about what you eat. Is it going to make you look or feel the way you want? What is the nutritional value of the food you're about to eat? Meaning will this food give me energy or will it eventually drain energy from me (IE: sugar). Is this food for emotional purpose only or is there some value to it? When we were younger, the more we were loved the more we were fed by moms and dads. Well guess what? That was fine then because we moved all day long and never stopped. If you think about our lives way back when, (yes, I am aging myself as I am writing this article) we rode our bikes or walked to school, we had three recesses, had P.E. everyday, rode our bikes or walked home (the long way), and avoided the 20 minutes of homework so that we could play outside until the street lights came on. And in the summer time we were gone all day long and we ate nothing but junk food. I don't think many of you were eating grilled chicken, rice and broccoli. Face it we ate what we wanted to and it was ok then because we burned it off faster than we consumed it. Now that has changed for us adults and for our kids. As adults we sit about 15 to 17 hours a day and sleep 6 hours. And for kids, the numbers are only getting worse for them as P.E. has been removed from most of the schools and we don't let them play outside the way we did. What does all of this mean? You want to eat it? Move more. You say you can't or don't want to move more, then don't eat it! Eat smaller portions. Most restaurants give you way too much food. When your meal comes ask for a to go box and wrap up half of the meal and put it aside so you don't pick at it while you sit and talk to your family and friends. If you can't eat one cookie or a handful of chips for a treat, then don't eat them at all. I'm not saying you can't eat dessert every now and then. What I am saying is that based on the amount of food most people eat in a sitting you don't deserve dessert. Stop blaming food groups (IE: carbs) and start taking the blame for yourself. If you're like most people that I come in contact with, and your goal is to lose body fat, then stop eating so much and start moving more!

Mike Pincus is a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Natural Trainer in Thousand Oaks, CA. Site design and photography by Nucular Appeal. Contact Mike