Tag Archives: Fitness

Try some of these low impact cardio alternatives to mix up your fitness routine.

Running is great exercise but some of us can’t get through a mile without our knees aching or our ankles swelling. Why is that? Running is essentially a form of PLYOMETRIC training with a lot of impact on our joints.  So if you want to get in extra cardio, without hitting the streets for a run – here are some low impact cardio alternatives to try.

Body weight squats for time 30s on 30s off for 20 minutes (If you are advanced enough).

Kettlebell swings 30s on 30s off for 15 minutes (visit YouTube and search for “gray cook swing” for proper instructions).

The rower do 500 m. x 5-10. Work your way up.

Medicine ball slams with push ups 20 seconds of each with a 20 second break in between for 15 minutes.

Like what you’ve read?  Share these posts with your friends and check out some of my previous blog posts for ideas on how to liven up your fitness routine and to stay motivated in 2015.  Kyle’s Health & Fitness posts.

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

Are you experiencing shoulder pain?  Is your workout suffering as a result? Injuries and strains can happen in and out of the gym and taking care of your body means listening to it and not ignoring potential injuries so if you are experiencing discomfort, talk to your doctor and discuss if you need to see a physical therapist.

In the mean time try applying these practices to get some relief.

Rest  Don’t beat a dead horse if it hurts sometimes a few days off will help resolve the problem – note that I said a few days (2-4 days is recommended). While resting add some ice and light compression for relief.

Stretch  On your days off, while you are resting, make sure you are stretching your chest, lats,and back to help increase blood flow and smooth over any knots you may have that are causing pain.

Take it Easy Stay within the 15-20 rep rang for you first day but take extra time to stretch and warm up and use lighter weights.

Be Mindful The pain you are experiencing may be due to body position (e.g. the way you sleep, sitting with your shoulders rolled forward or cradling a phone). Try to maintain good posture through the day.

Like what you’ve read?  Share these posts with your friends and check out some of my previous blog posts for ideas on how to liven up your fitness routine and to stay motivated in 2015.  Kyle’s Health & Fitness posts.

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

New Year’s Resolution Reset

How far have you come with your New Years resolutions? A majority of people have fizzled out on their fitness goals by now, so I’ve created a list of healthy results from a month of intense exercise for the 2 most popular fitness goals.

Weight loss: 4-8 pounds of weight loss is an amazing pace to lose fat. The 8-10 lb mark is where you will notice your pants are fitting a little better, and people that are close to you are starting to take notice. This pace is ideal in that it is less likely that you’ll lose any muscle with the fat that you are taking off. The quicker you lose it, the quicker it will be put back on. If you aren’t there yet, and you want to be – START NOW!

Muscle gain: Muscle gain norms are dependent on age and exercise history but 1-2 lbs in a month is attainable. Keep in mind, that in order gain muscle you will have to be at a calorie SURPLUS so the buildup of fat is almost inevitable but hopefully limited. If you haven’t gained any muscle this month, and you wanted to – WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Check out some of my previous blog posts for ideas on how to liven up your fitness routine and to stay motivated in 2015.  Kyle’s Health & Fitness posts.

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

Creating your own exercise program

Following last week’s post on creating an exercise program, I wanted to breakdown “The rules” for your Basic hypertrophy (building muscle) program, and then tie in how to make sure you can continue to see results which I’ll share in a later post.

Workout Structure: Hypertrophy (gaining muscle mass)

Choose an exercise of your own preference that focuses on the following and repeat each exercise 3-4 times (each set should include 8-12 reps) and focus on the “eccentric” phase of the muscle contraction.  Eccentric phase is defined as active contraction of a muscle occurring simultaneously with lengthening of the muscle. For example “lowering” the weight on a bench press or controlling the weight as it goes up on a lat pull down machine.

Upper body push/pull hypertrophy structure for building muscle

Bench press

Bent over barbell row

Core exercise

Lat pull down machine

Barbell overhead press

Core exercise

Dumbell flat bench

Straight arm lat pull down

Core exercise

8-12 reps is just enough time under tension stimulate muscle breakdown with heavy weights. Remember, if you are not “failing” out of every set, than you are missing out on valuable break down! Make sure you can not complete your set, and that the notion of one more rep seems “impossible”.

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

Creating your own exercise program

In this post we will breakdown “The rules” for creating a basic weight loss program.  Next week’s post will follow up and tie in how you can make sure you see continued results to hopefully help keep you motivated and committed.

For weightloss do 15-20 reps for each exercise and give your body minimal rest between full body workouts for maximum impact.

Workout structure

Choose an exercise of your own preference that focuses on the following and repeat each exercise 3-4 times (each set should include 15-20 reps):

lower body exercise – upper body pull – core exercise

(rest & repeat 3-4 times)

lower body exercise – upper body pull – upper body push 

(rest & repeat 3-4 times)

The higher repetitions are suggested to help you burn more calories, but still have the benefit of muscle breakdown that will keep you burning 24-48 hours after you’re done with your work out. I recommend doing this exercise AT LEAST 3 days a week to see results, though it is possible to get away with 2 days a week if your nutrition is on point.

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

Essential lift of the week: TRX Row

The TRX row is an amazing exercise that challenges the core, biceps and every part of your back! This is an essential lift in that it helps strengthen the “posterior chain” which is groupings of muscle along the back of the body. Typically these muscles are to “lengthened” and weak so we end of slouching over with bad posture. Add this workout into your regimen and improve your posture and biceps at the same time!

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

Work out of the week: TRX.

TRX is one tool that every fitness freak should have in their gym bag. Due to its unique stimulus and ease in which you can adjust the difficulty of each exercise, I have made the TRX one of my got-to tools in workouts for clients and myself.  TRX is unique in that you can hit every part of your body and scale each exercise in difficulty without adding an additional load or more tools.

This also makes for the perfect stocking stuffer and can help hold us to our cliche new years resolutions to eat better and work out more in the New Year. (Expect some TRX workouts/challenges to be posted in the future.)

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.

5 Tips to make sure the Turkey is the only sweaty, thing with a belly full of stuffing.  Follow these tips to ensure that you eat more of the right things on thanksgiving, and less of the bad.

• Make your first plate nothing but Meat and vegetables – This will make sure you get filled up with low calorie and high nutrient foods first, and will have minimal room left over for the bad stuff.
• Drink at least 1 large cup of water per plate.  This will not only help keep you full, but also remain hydrated through the inevitably high amounts of salt that you will be consuming.
• Sugar free pie-If you must have pastries, eat the sugar free one or bring one to the gathering. Anyone with diabetes will love the company, and you can feel a little less guilty while still enjoying the delicious fruits.
• Get in a KILLER workout in before the festivities begin.  This can be a quick trip to the gym, a game of touch football, or the workout listed in the last post. EARN YOUR FEAST.

Don’t stress, be thankful. Be health conscious, not obsessive and stressed over every calorie. This will put you in a shitty emotional state and actually lead to more weight gain. Relax, be happy, and give thanks!

Kyle is a nationally certified personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and lifestyle motivator out of Los Angeles, CA. He has been training for 5 years and has experience working with top-tier celebrity and executive clientele. When he’s not in the gym, Kyle is reading philosophy or writing poetry.