Nashville's Premier Personal Fitness Training Center
April 2018 New Thoughts on The Body’s Response to Exercise An Australian study published in Cell Metabolism (Jan. 2018) hypothesized that the cells communicate with each other in response to physical activity. Vesicles, tiny protein-filled packages, “contain genetic material and proteins that carry messages to other parts” of the body that all have connections toRead More
March 2018 Potty Talk: FODMAPs & Athletic GI Distress Gastrointestinal distress is relatively common in endurance athletes: 30% – 50% report it. As blood is shunted from the gut to the working muscles during intense training, “acute enterocyte injury, increased intestinal permeability and altered motility” can cause bloating, diarrhea, pain and flatulence. So canRead More
February 2018 The Breakfast Debate, Part XXXX A recent study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology confirms what your mom told you well before you could read: Eat your breakfast. Previous studies have suggested that breakfasters have lower rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, as well as better glucoseRead More
January 2018 Low-Carb for Athletes: A Fallacy of Anecdotism? Since the early 1970s, virtually all sports nutrition research has focused on the value and merits of carbohydrate consumption to enhance athletic performance, especially for long distance events. Recently a new concept of training while low on carbs has received some testimonialRead More
28 Steps to 28 Years of STEPS This December 11, 2017, marks the 28th year in business for STEPS Fitness. It was originally founded by a college colleague, Kathy Alexander, and I in 1986 as a concept. We opened our first gym in 1989, so that’s what I’d call our start date. Despite the corporateRead More
Starting January 2017, REAL News will be scaled back to two pages so you’ll have more time to exercise. Shameless Self-Promotion: Personal Training Works!!! Small group personal training isn’t new; it’s just a natural evolutionary shift with the profession of personal training itself. It entails accommodating the needs andRead More
November 2017 Little Blue Pill Helps Some Swimmers, Too A rare swimming disorder that affects only some open-water distance swimmers (military recruits, triathletes) may benefit from the same drug many middle aged men use medicinally and recreationally. SIPE – swimming-induced pulmonary edema – presents as shortness of breath, a cough that has bloody secretions,Read More
October 2017 The ‘Obesity Paradox’ Paradox What if a paradox is demonstrated to not be so paradoxical after all? Can a paradox be a double negative? The “obesity paradox”, developed in 1999 from observations that patients undergoing dialysis for end-stage kidney disease had lesser mortality if overweight or obese (BMI of 25-29.9 and 30-34.9, respectively)Read More
September 2017 Specificity: Neuromuscular Adaptions Depend on How You Train There are two main principles to fitness training that determine your outcomes: overload and specificity. Overload refers to making the body do more than it’s accustomed to doing, be it lifting, running, stretching or what not. Specificity refers toRead More
August 2017 Intelligent Training for Painful Muscles Believe it or not, scientists are still not sure what exactly causes musculoskeletal pain (MSP) from chronic use, overuse or abuse. A couple of Danish researchers propose a model that attempts to explain the source of such pains as are typically seen inRead More
