Summer is closer than you think!
Pretty soon we will see magazines in the grocery store checkout aisles claiming swimsuit weather is coming…and while that may be true, there is more to it than that. Winter months can sometimes bring the blues and we can lack motivation. For many of us, winter is a time of comfort food and big clothes. Today I am wearing a long skirt and a sweater, for instance. It’s easy to hide ourselves in winter clothes, and oftentimes (although I hate to admit the magazines are right), spring and summer seem to sneak up and surprise us.
So with 100 days before the start of the summer months, it is a good time to check ourselves so as not to be taken by surprise when the warmer months suddenly show up! The following are six tips to make sure we are getting ready for the approaching summer months: [Read more…]
Finishing up our first year at 9 Kid Fitness, I want to thank all of you who have visited our site, contributed with comments, and just checked in with us via Facebook and Twitter. Launching last March, my hope was to engage with others who are trying to make fitness a priority in their very busy lives. Thank you for being a part of the 9 Kid Fitness community, and I hope that we will continue to find support and encouragement from each other in 2012! Today I would like to look back over the last year and highlight nine of the most visited posts at 9 Kid Fitness:
I read an article recently about busting some of the myths of exercise. One of these myths was the “No pain, No gain” theory. The writer was referring to the false idea that in order to gain anything from exercise, a workout needed to hurt. It doesn’t, he explained. Most people understand this; we know that exercise shouldn’t “hurt” us. When we workout, we should not push past pain that could result in injury or exacerbate soreness or pain that could lead to injury. That being said, the proverbial phrase “No pain, No gain” is a true and significant one if we want to improve ourselves through exercise. 
There is no room for instant gratification when it comes to fitness. We live in a world that is driven by instant results; cell phones, computers, cars, even cooking, can deliver results immediately. But when it comes to our exercise goals, we need to kick the instant gratification need out the door. My friend Alan Tyson, physical therapist and owner of Architech Sports and Physical Therapy, works with lots of athletes and deals with injuries often, and with those who are trying to get back into action. He knows that most of us want results quickly, but he also knows that sometimes the long term outlook is crucial to success. 
It takes about 30 days for your body to adapt to a new lifestyle change. In other words, after working out consistently for about a month, your body really starts to feel it as something habitual. It just so happens, I believe, that one month is about the time it takes for us to see real change in our bodies from working out (either from starting up from nothing, or changing up the routine.) Why is that important to know? Because this is the best time of year to make a change and stick with it.
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