Ingredients:
1/2 lemon squeezed
1/4 tsp. Himalayan pink salt
2 c. water
1 tbsp. honey

​Ingredients
1. Put all of the ingredients into an air tight mason jar.
2. Shake thoroughly.
3. Enjoy! 

Recipe from: http://www.raisinggenerationnourished.com/2014/12/diy-electrolyte-drink/#comment-22635

What is overheating and why is it bad? 

Overheating is when the body’s core temperature rises above baseline (within 2 degrees of 98.6F). 
When your body begins to overheat you first become clammy, then your forehead becomes damp, and finally you begin to break a sweat...(keep reading)

The instant you become clammy, your body has begun the process of cooling down due to overheating, meaning resources are taken away from the muscles that are exercising and given to the cooling process. 

When you exercise, the friction of your muscles generates heat. The brain knows that the body must thermoregulate but it also knows that the body is performing work of a demanding nature. This puts stress on your body to perform both tasks at once. 
If your body overheats, you are in danger of:

• Heat cramps (legs or stomach)
• Heat exhaustion 
• Heat stroke

​These dangers are common when exercising outdoors in warm weather. Imagine the difference between exercising in 98 degree weather or 64 degree weather. Which one is going to be safer and yield better results?

Although we keep our studios at 64 degrees, the way you dress can have a significant impact on your workout. If you dress in non-breathable fibers or wear your jacket during your workout, you trap the heat generated. If you want to be well-prepared for your workout, shorts and a tank top are the way to go. You should warm up quickly and if you don’t, you’re probably not working out hard enough. 
This is also why we use fans, sometimes right from the start. Before you break a sweat, the heat generated from your body will make you feel like you’re not able to get a good amount of air. Again, think of exercising in 98 degrees versus 64. Which one is easier to breathe? Our fans serve a dual purpose — avoid sweating and provide cool air for better breathing. Please do not reject the use of fans as it is for your benefit. Your exercise specialist can place the fan in such a way that it provides air flow without directly hitting you in the face. 
Although your Exercise Specialist will monitor you during your workout, it’s always good to know the early signs of overheating. They include:

• Damp skin
• Sweating
• Muscle cramps
• Thirst 
• Tiredness (beyond the exercise; sudden onset)

Later signs include:

• Weakness 
• Dizziness
• Headache
• Nausea/vomiting
• Cool, moist skin
• Dark urine

If you ever feel these symptoms during a workout, please let your Exercise Specialist know right away or, if you’re working out elsewhere on your own, stop the exercise. Remove any extra layers of clothing and drink water or an electrolyte drink (DIY drink recipe HERE).

Here are some things you can do to help you get the best workout every time, no matter what kind of exercise you do:

1. Get to bed by 10 pm the night before, no matter what time your workout is scheduled for. 

The Gallbladder does its job of processing fats in the body between the hours of 11pm and 1am. Not only will you feel more rested getting to bed before 10 but you’ll also assist your body in eliminating unnecessary fats. In fact, recent studies show that the optimal amount of sleep hours is actually 6.5-7 hours for adults as opposed to the popular 7-9 belief.  Learn more through Dr. John Bergman’s sleep series on YouTube. 

2. Drink an electrolyte drink

The day of your workout, have an electrolyte drink (see our favorite homemade recipe!). "Electrolytes are chemicals that form ions in body fluids. They help make sure specific bodily functions run at optimal levels. Too few electrolytes will cause the body to cramp. As serious athletes know, cramping can make a big difference on race day. So how do we prevent cramping and keep our body running at its peak performance levels? We keep it supplied with the needed amount of electrolytes." - Steve Born of Hammer Nutrition

If you make your own electrolyte drink, you could have some every day in fact!


3. Don’t eat within an hour or two before your workout

If you haven’t eaten anything, then definitely eat something small before your workout but eating within two hours of your workout isn’t healthy for two main reasons...

When you work out full, it cuts your digestive process because the blood supply must divert from digestion to the muscles. This leads to nausea, an upset stomach and a lousy workout (and you will generally feel miserable).

​
4. Arrive 5 minutes before your workout to focus

Aim to arrive exactly five minutes before. After initially greeting everyone, use those five minutes to prepare yourself for your workout. Envision how the workout will go and how you will feel afterwards. Leave everything that is running around in your mind outside of the workout room. 

5. Be in the moment

Focus all of your attention on your workout. Try to experience the present and be in your body. Forget the conversation and dive into the present. 

When a workout becomes really intense, it can signal a flight or fight response in people. You need to be focused in order to avoid flight (giving up) before you’ve reached muscle failure. Getting to failure is what makes the difference in stimulating your body to change. ​

If you feel your mind wandering in the quiet moments, tell yourself what you’re doing to refocus. For example, “Right now, I’m on the chest press and I’m pushing my arms forward.” Then let the rest of the world fall away. 

The most frequent question we get during a consultation, aside from the price, is “What else do I need to do aside from strength training?”

When we reply with “nothing,” ninety-nine percent of the time it is met with a skeptical brow raise. 

“Nothing?” the new members asks.
”Nothing,” we affirm.
”Stretching?” 
“No. That can do more harm than good.”
”Running?”
“A light jog if you feel like it.”
”Yoga?”
“Only meditative.” 
“Biking?”
”For leisure only.”

...you get the idea.


But why?

Why do we assert that our exercise is all you really need?

To answer this, we need to define what exercise is and what rest is. 

The definition of exercise that we follow as our credo is this: 

Exercise is a process whereby the body does work of a demanding nature in accordance with muscle and joint function, in a clinically-controlled environment,  within the constraints of safety, meaningfully loading the muscular structures to inroad their strength levels to stimulate a growth mechanism in minimum time.
This definition is the one created by SuperSlow™ founder Ken Hutchins (link below)

Line-by-line, this is what it means:

• Work of a demanding nature —> intense
• In accordance with muscle and joint function —> considers the intended use of the muscles and joints and doesn’t require any movements that don’t follow intended use (i.e. if the muscle is intended to create a downward movement, then that is what the movement of the exercise. More on muscle function in another post.)
• In a clinically controlled environment —> activity performed in non controlled environments are just recreational activity, not exercise. This is because we exercise to produce a desired result. Unless clinically controlled, you may get your desired result and also other results that you did not intend for. 
• Within the constraints of safety —> under the premise that all any activity can hurt you, true exercise should incorporate all possible constraints to avoid this
• Meaningfully loading the muscular structures —> using 75% of the maximum resistance 
• To inroad their strength levels —> get muscles to thorough momentary failure (when, during the exercise, they can no longer contract)
• To stimulate a growth mechanism —> to create a positive physical adaptation
• Within minimum time —> adaptation can only respond within a small window of time
  
  

Now to define “rest.” When we say “rest,” we mean a period of time in which your body recovers. 

There are two kinds of rest:

1. Repose = lying down and doing nothing
2. Active recovery = light activity that uses your muscles in a non demanding way, which can enhance the recovery process (e.g. shorter, slower walking; a brief, relaxing swim; light jog; meditative yoga; etc.)

Any time you exercise intensely, you should incorporate both kinds of rest. 

Specifically, when you are working out at The Strength Studio, Inc. we want you to incorporate both kinds of rest using our “rest recipe.” 

The Strength Studio, Inc.’s Rest Recipe: First 24-48 hours = repose + remainder of time until next workout = active recovery*
*Please keep in mind this rest recipe is for the average individual who is not currently under medical care. Individuals with special health considerations may need more repose-type rest. Always consult with a medical professional and listen to your body first. 

Within the first 24-48 hours of working out, rest should be 80% repose, 20% active recovery. The 20% is only because we assume that you will need to walk around at the grocery store or run errands or work, etc. Whether you need 24 or 48 will depend on your workout and how your body feels. It’s important to listen to your body and not ignore its attempts to get you to rest in repose. Some signs that you need repose are headaches, fatigue, or irritability (these could also signal dehydration  or low blood sugar so make sure you have more than enough water or electrolyte drinks and healthy food; see our favorite homemade electrolyte drink recipe below). 

Once your period of repose is done, we encourage you to be active in your recovery. Walk as many places as you can; enjoy that scenic (non-intense) bike ride; take that relaxing swim you’ve been meaning to get in. Active recovery can make muscles less sore if there is soreness at all. 

Active recovery can also prolong the aerobic cycle that continues well after your strength training workout is done. In case you aren’t aware, high intensity strength training engages the aerobic cycle long after your workout is over, enabling you to burn extra calories when you’re not working out and boosting your metabolism. Once your repose period is over, you can keep those calories burning by engaging in active recovery. 

However, when engaging in active recovery, you must avoid intensity. To get the true benefits of strength training (getting stronger, reducing body fat, decreasing waist size, boosting metabolism, enhancing flexibility, enhancing the immune system, etc.), you don’t want to engage in other high intensity activities that often. When you do this, you interrupt recovery and must start all over again in the recovery process. When done too close to a strength training workout, you then push the body further into breakdown, putting yourself at a higher risk of injury and preventing the benefits you seek. 

This does not mean that you should not ever engage in any other intense activities. Perhaps you love tennis and play a game once a week; or maybe you wanted to participate in a 5k for charity; or hike sugarloaf. These things are ok. Strength training should support you in these endeavors by making you stronger for them. The thing to be aware of here is how frequently you’re engaging in them and whether they are disrupting your recovery and potentially causing injury. 
Power of 10 strength training is a minimalist approach to exercise which means we need to be intentional with our exercise and recreation in order to enhance our health through exercise. Otherwise you could be doing more harm than good. Take pro-athletes for example. Their bodies may look good but inside they’re a wreck! They get surgery after surgery and once they’re retired, many deal with long-lasting injuries or even disabilities. This is not the ideal. Another example is the ever-growing prevalence of Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib) among middle-aged athletes. This is particularly true for marathoners. Read more about this phenomena in the link below. 

But let’s say you really want to be a middle-aged athlete (our average age at The Strength Studio, Inc. is 56, after all).

Going back to the tennis example. Your desire is to get stronger in order to improve your game. To get this result, there needs to be a balance between strength training, skills training, and rest. Such an athlete can strength train once a week (considering they are in good health) and use that  weekly session for building strength. They should NOT use their tennis practice as an opportunity to build strength. On the court, they are not in a clinically controlled environment with expert strength-training supervision. Therefore, anything done on the court to gain strength will most likely have the opposite effect (making them weaker or causing injury). 

On the court, this athlete should focus only on skills training — ideally skills that mimic real tennis matches. Of course, in tennis, there is no way to avoid intensity. Athletes sprint back and forth with bombastic movements that are harsh on the joints. Therefore, if they really wanted to enhance their game, the athlete would strength train once a week and skills train twice a week with repose-style rest in between. 

On weeks where there is a match, the athlete should drop the strength training session and one of the skills training sessions in order to allow for overcompensation (when your body overly compensates in its recovery in anticipation of the intense activity). This athlete would be strong, skilled and rested for their match which is what they were seeking to begin with. 

Specifically, in our Sebastopol and Sonoma studios, a majority of our members walk, do yoga, or garden in between workouts. These activities are ok as long as they don’t interrupt the repose period and are not intense. If you start huffing and puffing during the activity or feel any kind of strain, then it’s too intense. 

Other clients want to do chiropractic or pilates between workouts. 

Chiropractic can can be a great complementary service with strength training as long as the chiropractor is truly skilled and knowledgeable in treating the body. There should be a treatment plan in place with an end date and they should know about building muscle enough to know how that activity can be used to support their chiropractic work (it’s really the one thing that can make chiropractic work last because you’ll have the muscle to keep the adjustments in place). See our number 1 chiropractor recommendation below. 

When it comes to Pilates, we have to ask, what purpose does it serve? If you come to us for strength, then you don’t need additional strengthening sessions. Our machines are medical grade, rehabilitative machines that track each individual’s strength curve and that cover every single muscle in the body, especially the core (in fact, every single machine works the core in addition to the other target muscle groups). 

If the reason for Pilates is stretching (or the purpose of yoga, for that matter) then we ask you to consider this: all (static) stretching is over stretching. This is worth repeating: 

ALL STATIC STRETCHING IS OVER STRETCHING

Beyond the natural stretches that your body craves after periods of inactivity (e.g. after sleep or travel), your muscles don’t need to be pulled. They cannot be lengthened. That’s determined by your genes. Nor can they be shortened or tightened. (Static) Stretching is like pulling a rubber band over and over. When done too much, it looses its elasticity and leaves your joints without proper support which makes you extremely susceptible to injury. We’ll talk about stretching in detail in another post but in the mean time, for more about this, see the link to this study about stretching. Also, read SuperSlow™ co-founder Brenda Hutchins’ essay on the reality of pilates, provided in the link below. 

Finally, when we consider what health is defined as, we understand the need to be intentional with our exercise and rest. Very basically, health is defined as freedom from injury or illness. If we want to enhance that, we need to take our doses of exercise as seriously as our doses of medicine. In exercise, more is not better. ​

Links: 
1. The First Definition of Exercise by Ken Hutchins: http://www.ren-ex.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/The-First-Definition-of-Exercise1.pdf
2. The Truth About Stretching: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112pewarm.html
3. Why Not Pilates? by Brenda Hutchins: http://www.health101.org/art_Why_Not_Pilates.htm
4. A-Fib in Athletes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5135187/