Kaizen Conscious

Introducing my Business Partner, Frank!

When I first met Frank, I thought he was off the friggin chain! I could always see him across the gym doing his unique workouts, in matching Nike outfits, where he was the only man that consistently incorporated plyometrics into every workout. He stood out. He wasn't always trying to lift heavy ass weights by the weight racks and still was impressively jacked. As he is predominantly an ectomorph, I was impressed by Frank's muscle size and technique and that he had pushed through his genetics to gain mass through much intensive training. He still had size while working multiple body parts through circuits, sets and plyometric intervals. I couldn't help but notice that the former college track runner was on that fitness elite level as I was.


One day, as destiny would have it in the fitness world, I bumped into Frank while doing similar workouts. In getting to know him, I fed off of his positive energy, focused demeanor and energetic attitude. He was the first person I'd met in a long time that had just as much energy as I have. It rejuvenated me and my workouts. Needless to say, we became gym besties and decided to join forces in fitness training and nutrition counseling after sharing our blunders, successes, epiphanies, competition and fitness modeling dreams. We lamented about simplistic training mentalities that would force our clients to eat more not less, to work out harder, not longer and to do less cardio than overcompensating when they hadn't eaten enough to do another cardio!  We even planned on working towards doing more competitions as cohorts. In the verbal exchanges and workouts where we competed and challenged each other, I began to see Frank's value. Through vision and much planning, I wanted to take my business sense to another level and realized that I no longer wanted to do it alone.  

After learning that Frank had started his own training business, Kaizen Fitness Training, starting with two heavy bags and a garage several years ago, he built up to attaining 12 clients while holding down a full time job. I couldn't help but be even more impressed. That, not only did he have the know how, he had more experience than me. He showed me how to box and continues to do so as he was an MMA fighter and has been fighting since he was 12. He was a powerlifter in his early 20s and now an aspiring fitness model and training entrepreneur in his latter 20s. Throughout these years, his passion for fitness has attracted several clients with the posting of one training video.  Frank can proudly say, that whenever a prospective client has been interested they have ALWAYS signed up. I thought, I want that person on my team!!

I knew that it wasn't just business sense I wanted in a partner, I wanted to join forces with someone who had heart, not just knowledge, but understanding and a noticeable passion to constantly be bettering themselves from the inside out. I had found my partner. Always live by example, you never know who is watching.

Our company, Kaizen Fitness Training, was appropriately named "Kaizen", a Japanese word meaning continuous improvement in all areas in a given industry. In this case, to be "Kaizen conscious" will be used to describe the infinite improvement of one from the mental to the physical realms of training. Frank and I both believe that physical fitness is just a part of being healthy. You must not neglect your spiritual, mental and emotional health in order to truly be balanced. Most exercises a person performs and how well they perform them are typically based on whether the individual thinks that they CAN do it to begin with.

In Kaizen Fitness Training, our clients will experience workouts that incorporate basic kickboxing and boxing techniques intertwined with strength training/plyometric techniques for optimal results. We are one of the few training companies in the DC, Maryland and Virginia areas that combines these three forms of fitness.



Be enlightened. Come take the Kaizen challenge and see how balanced and in harmony your mind, body and soul become!

"With Kaizen there is no final destination, growth is a never ending process that happens every day. Each day we all move forward or backward, there is no neutral or standing still. Which way do you want to go?" -Frank B. and Kristen T.

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Stay tuned for videos, virtual training sessions, in-person training sessions, updated pictures of our team, client stories/references, more blogs, etc. Contact us @ trainkaizen.com

Please check out our Facebook Kaizen Fitness Training (AND Like please!!):

Kaizen Fitness Training: http://www.facebook.com/pages/KAIZEN-FITNESS-TRAINING/108058192558332?ref=tn_tnmn

Official Kaizen Fitness Training Website: (for pricing, packages and more information to come and train with us!)

http://www.trainkaizen.com/

Kristened Nutrition Counseling: (most specifically for nutrition counseling)

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=241624892587772&id=100003497134767&notif_t=share_comment#!/profile.php?id=100003497134767

The More Active You Are, The More Free Your Mind Is

"You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can't have it."
--Robert Anthony

From my teenage years I battled with a healthy body image. Looking around at my classmates and family members, I always felt that I was heavier than my peers. It wasn't until I ran the mile as a fitness assessment in high school clocking in at 11:50 that I faced the reality that I was not physically fit. I was so tired, winded and out of breath when half of that mile was spent walking the track. At 15, I realized I needed a change. After complaining about my weight, my mother reminded me that all I needed to do was lace up my tennis shoes and hit the pavement--that being fit doesn't always require a gym membership. From that day forward I made a promise to myself to live a healthy lifestyle where daily activity became a necessity. I made running after school a daily habit. First starting at 1/2 a mile everyday. Within a year, I had progressed to running 3 miles without resting. Since then and throughout college I continued to run, bike, swim (i taught myself), lift weights, and completed a 3- week triathlon in two weeks on top of doing my own workout. I am proud to say my mile time is now 7:13! I didn't have a trainer, a team, a coach or fitness mentor. Just the love of runner's high, the passion for competing against my own personal best and the power of knowing that you CAN do anything you think you CAN do. After competing in my first and second figure shows consecutively in June and July (2010) it became clear to me in my personal struggles and setbacks that inner strength and mental health are just as essential if not more, than being physically fit.


Several years ago, I resigned from a position in Corporate America. I realized how stress in that position had been affecting my life, my goals, attitude, my body and was hindering my dreams. I had been enrolled in the National Personal Training Institute for a year of intensive lectures and on-the-floor gym training. Taking a leap of faith, I had finally realized how training and fitness were the only positive constants in my life and decided to pursue it as my "day job". I began independently training and offering nutrition advice in January 2010, then pursued another dream of competing in a figure competition. My first competition coach, R.H. Williams,  most recently reminded me, after placing 3rd in my first show: "You will always be your greatest competitor." That statement has become an honest reminder that being fit in all areas: mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually can positively or negatively affect your body as well as your life. With that said, I would like to encourage and motivate all of my clients that they can do anything they THINK they can do and then some. Workouts should be challenging to the body and therapeutic to the mind. With each client session it is my hope to bring that to the table; challenging workouts paired with therapy of the mind.
 You can do anything, you think you can, especially with someone else who thinks you can!



The more active you are, the more free your mind is. -Kristened Nutrition & Training




Contact Kristened @ kristenjtucker@yahoo.com OR add my facebook page: Kristened Nutritional Counseling for more info!

Steady State vs. HIIT Training; You Only Need One Cardio!!!

"For every hour that you sit, you lose 15 minutes off of your life."

Introduction
I will start by saying that any physical activity that raises your heart rate is good for you. Period. The more advanced one gets, the more one must intensify and switch up their workouts to continue to be challenged in order to see results. The less active you are, you have it a little bit easier when starting out doing any physical activity that your body is not used to because you may always see changes in your "beginner" stage, based simply on the fact that you are not conditioned. As of late, the Institute of Medicine, as a call to the general public, "increased its recommendations from 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days of the week to 60 minutes of exercise EVERY day." I couldn't agree more.

The Buzz About HIIT Training
"It's like lighting a match to a fat-burning furnace...!!!"

In the last two months, there's been a noticeable buzz about HIIT training vs. steady-state cardio in popular magazines like Oxygen, Fitness Rx, Muscle and Fitness Hers and  GNC's, Muscle Body that interval training and/or HIIT training vs. steady state cardio, have been hot topics for debate. In my own experience, steady-state cardio had worked slowly over time, which makes sense. In doing steady-state cardio which is a low-intensity cardio activity such as walking, jogging, ellipticaling, cycling or swimming and more you are at one steady constant pace. You do not typically vary this pace, you do this activity at your moderately intense speed. Unlike our counterpart HIIT also known as High Intensity Interval Training, appropriately named for its bouts of "work periods" and "rest periods" or recovery periods. HIIT is said to have an "afterburn effect", (where you continue to burn calories after you've performed the exercise) and is more of a power exercise. This fact alone shows that HIGH intensity interval training is the opposite of LOW intensity steady-state cardio. Being that, it will require more energy to perform.

What is HIIT?
According to HIITtraining.net , "HIIT is the quickest way to burn fat and gain muscle simultaneously. How does HIIT work? HIIT optimizes your workout time by utilizing a series of short, high-intensity intervals, followed up by longer, low-intensity intervals. The reason HIIT is so successful is that HIIT’s repeated intervals constantly keeps your body confused. Your body is never given a chance to “plateau” or get used to one setting, something that is common with other forms of cardio. Due to the nature of HIIT, it is typical to have workouts that are only 20 minutes or less and still burn the same amount of calories as an hour of regular exercising. The best part of HIIT is that it boosts your metabolism and will continue to burn hundreds of calories hours after you are done exercising! HIIT is all about changing it up and fighting the ever looming “plateau effect”, and if used properly, HIIT is one of the best ways to reach your fitness goals."

I couldn't have explained that better myself. I would say its a rather optimistic summary on HIIT training as it only takes into account those of us trying to lose weight and not the group that is trying to keep or build more muscle than what they have.  The loophole is that if done too intensely or on not enough calories HIIT can have the effect of you burning off your lean mass and/or muscles. So, everything including cardio MUST be tailored to fit your body type and your specific fitness/nutrition goals.

On the other hand, Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" e-book that I can accurately say is a bodybuilding Bible, authorizes that "One beneficial aspect of HIIT that most trainers forget to mention is that HIIT may actually suppress your appetite, while steady state cardio might increase appetite. However, in the study performed (between an Endurance Training group and a HIIT training group in Tom Venuto's article), the lack of the monitoring of nutrition can both groups can skew the results where both forms of cardio in both studied groups, tie. If energy intake were not controlled, then some of the greater fat loss in the HIIT group could be due to lowered caloric intake.

"Last but not least, I’d like to highlight the words of the researchers themselves in the conclusion of the paper, which confirms the effectiveness of HIIT, but also helps put it in perspective a bit:

For a given level of energy expenditure, a high intensity training program induces a greater loss of subcutaneous fat compared with a training program of moderate intensity.”  

(For those of you that don't know, subcutaneous fat is the fat right underneath your skin tissue.)

“It is obvious that high intensity exercise cannot be prescribed for individuals at risk for health problems or for obese people who are not used to exercise. In these cases, the most prudent course remains a low intensity exercise program with a progressive increase in duration and frequency of sessions.” (Venuto)

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"If one cardio isn't enough in  a day, you didn't do the first one right!!"

My Experience
 

Many bodybuilders swear by low-intensity cardio training when getting ready for shows because of how low-intensity exercise primarily utilizes your fat stores as energy, hence, it's slow and long characteristic. The theory is, in order for bodybuilders to preserve their muscle while still shredding fat with minimal muscle loss, slow and steady cardio wins the race without burning off much muscle.  However, once again, being a guinea pig to both forms of cardio and being in the minority for the body type that I am; female mesomorph, both have worked but HIIT has worked better.

For these last two years, I swore by steady-state cardio twice a day. Sometimes jogging up to 9 miles in a day and seeing little difference. I felt great but I didn't see the kind of immediate results one would think they would get after running that distance. I persevered and eventually was burnt out by the amount of time spent doing countless hours of cardio. I was over it AND so was my body as I began to see minimal results unless I was strict with my nutrition.

However, after years of doing slow and steady cardio on a full or empty stomach I have only noticed significantly increased gains of weight loss or mass when I counted my calories. I've been doing this form of cardio since I was 15 and now, almost 26 I clearly needed a change. Perhaps, changing my cardio to almost anything else would have worked. However, being an advanced conditioned "elite athlete", I must do difficult workouts to get shredded. So far, HIIT has been the answer. Just after a few days of doing it, fat off my abs started to melt. I could feel them coming through as I sprinted through my work intervals. Some days I had to eat extra carbs to refuel for my training workout-- which I have NEVER had to do in my low-intensity cardio days.  I've never felt like I was burning fat so effectively until I tried HIIT training to the point that I couldn't do it everyday like I wanted because I was simply burning too much too fast! Almost to the point where I was burning off my leg muscles and trust, for me, that is HARD to do!

The Loophole
Today I jogged outside for 50 minutes. It was harder than expected, there were some hills and I had burnt out some of my carb stores the night before doing HIIT cardio. So it was no surprise that jogging felt like I was climbing Mt. Everest at every bump in the road! I jogged it at a steady rate on an empty stomach and after taking a month break of not jogging at a steady state for awhile, to then come back to it today, the results afterwards were also noticeable. However, doing too much anything is typically not a good thing. You could burn out or easily overtrain. Bottom line is, its always important to switch it up! Depending on your body type (it WILL be an ongoing theme) HIIT training will be fabulous for the thicker individual who has fat they want to get rid of and are pressed for time and are NOT looking to gain weight for any bodytype.   If you are in a bodybuilding mode and are an ectomorph or ecto-meso, that is trying to build muscle you must be careful with the amount of HIIT you do, or at all, if you are a hard-gainer because it is easy for you to lose weight and resist building muscle. If you do it, you better eat enough!!!


Gone are the days of two-a-day cardio sessions. I've seen more of my muscles shine through the fat on ONE hard cardio session than two low-intensity ones. Either way, diet, intensity and heart rate, ALWAYS play a significant role in losing or gaining weight.

HIIT Training example:

• 1 minute walk
• 1 minute jog
• 1 minute sprint (then repeat for 20-40 mins max)

Steady State Cardio example:

• 30 minutes on the elliptical at a steady speed of 90 strides a minute

On a Kristened note: Carbs are essential for energy on your HIIT cardio days so make sure you get enough!

More to come in my next blog on Why HIIT is so effective and further details regarding this training technique.


Sources:
Venuto, Tom. "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle."

Web link:
www.HIITtraining.net
http://www.hiittraining.net/

Website:
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/steady-state-cardio-5-x-more-effective-than-hiit/

Textbook:
Nix, Staci. "Williams' Basic Nutrition and Diet Therapy". St.Louis, Missouri. Mosby, Inc.2009.