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The Difference: Small Group Training vs Classes

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Small Group Training and Group Classes appear to be very similar at the surface. Both programs are based on Group-based Fitness. But there are very significant differences in the quality of each program. The difference is in the name.

Group Fitness Class: Instructor led program, with predominantly aerobic exercises, broad enough for most audiences to attend

Small Group Training: A small group, structured exercise program, led by Certified Specialists that targets the 5 elements of overall health:

  1. Aerobic Training
  2. Strength Training
  3. Core Exercise
  4. Balance Training
  5. Flexibility and Stretching

Here are some PROS and CONS of Group Classes VS Small Group Training Sessions. Hopefully this will help you become more informed about the different types of programs avalable to you, and choose the one that fits best with your Personal goals. 

GROUP CLASSES

THE PROS

Group classes are most commonly seen in large gyms, opposed to boutique fitness classes. They often come with a general gym membership, which allows you to use the facility, as well as attend any class on the schedule for a low monthly fee. Where the class capacity is commonly a minimum of 10 people, there is plenty of flexibility in signing up for classes with little chance of them closing out.

THE CONS:

In a traditional gym setting with a membership price betwenn $10-$60 per month, there can be thousands of members attending that facility. With class sizes between 10 and 50 people per 1 hour class, the instructors are taught to give general recommendations for optimal fitness, but often cannot correct individuals. This could mean that you may be squatting incorrectly, that could lead to pain and dysfunction, without a instuctor available to help you with it. In addition, group class instructors do not have to be Certified Personal Trainers, leading to a potential decrease in the programming and/or quality of instruction. 

SMALL GROUP TRAINING

THE PROS:

Small Group Training, is newer to the fitness scene, but it’s goal is to provide higher quality training than group classes. It allows the Personal ‘trainers to see to it that  their clients will reach their goals safer, and faster. We do this by keeping our member base lower so that we notice when you miss a session, and can hold you accountable to reaching your goals. We host smaller class sizes of up to 6 people,  allowing for each individual to be observed, and ensure that you are safe throughout each exercise. Our Small Group Training instructors are Personal Trainers and Certified Specialists, who are able to offer specific advice to each client.  Small Group Training Sessions are best described as the quality of Persoanl Trainer, at a more affordable price point, and a small, like-minded community to share experience and motivation with.

THE CONS:

Where we strongly believe in the value of Small Group Training, and find it hard to come up with any cons, there are some we feel obligated to share with you. The most noteable are that the price points are much more affordable than Personal Training, but definitely a higher price point that group classes. The going rate for Personal Trainers in Boston is anywhere between $85-$100 per hour. You are paying for a Personal Trainer, and splitting the price with other members to make it more affordable for a longer period of time. With smaller class sizes, you are also more likely to plan ahead, as sessions can sell out faster. We recommend finding Small Group Training that allows you to book online, in order to get the most optimal classes for your schedule.

The Small Group Fitness Community

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LEVEL UP FITNESS WALTHAM

  • At Level Up Fitness Waltham, we thrive on our sense of community. Everyone working together with the same goal of bettering ourselves.
  • With Training sessions of 6 people or less, you can trust that you are getting the most out of every exercise.
  • We understand the daily life challenges that often get in the way of our ability to keep up with a regular exercise schedule. That is why we offer Unlimited Small Group Training with online scheduling, so that you can come as often as you would like, and can schedule and reschedule in a few easy clicks.
  • We want you to get the biggest bang for your buck. For just $150 per month, you receive our Unlimited Small Group Membership! Choose from over 15 classes per week!
  • One of the best parts about our program, is that we provide a variety of different kinds of training sessions, allowing you to pick the sessions that best meet your goals. Take a look at our Training descriptions:
TRANSFORM 101 (Strength, Core Training): A Level Up signature class! This Intro Course to Lifting Free Weights will help enforce best practices to tone muscles, create total body muscle definition, and decrease body fat. Appropriate for all levels!
 
H.I.I.T Fit (Aerobic Training): Level Up your cardio / endurance in this high intensity interval training session. Interval training is known to keep your heart pumping in the fat burning zone for a higher caloric burn. H.I.I.T Fit is a great challenge for all Fitness levels.
 
BootCamp (Aerobic, Strength Training)[}: Our Trainers delight! Explore a variety of exercises, hand picked to challenge you in each class. Challenge your will-power in a fun and friendly environment. Appropriate for all fitness levels and abilities
 
Integrative Yoga (Flexibility,  Stretching Balance): A Vinyasa style yoga, integrated with hip, shoulders and upper back stabilizing exercises for a posture reforming, high energy flowing, complete workout with a laid back atmosphere.

Want to try a Small Group Training Session for FREE? Click here and use promo code: SGTBLOG at checkout! 

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How To Make Your Cardio Work For You!

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Do you feel like your cardio program isn’t working for you? Or maybe you lost a bunch of weight with your program, and keep gaining it back?

If you are struggling to reach, or maintain your weight loss goals, Keep reading…  

What is wrong?

There are a few factors to consider when trying to figure out how to make your workout routine work for you. The first one to consider is your current eating habits. Are they falling in line with your fitness goals? Check to make sure your eating habits  support and fuel your fitness goals, otherwise you will be setting yourself up for failure before you see any progress. If you are burning 500 calories in your run, but overeating 600 calories per day, you are going gain weight, not lose it. 

Your cardio workouts could also be failing you because the capacity of each workout may not be shocking enough to your body to increase your metabolic burn rate. Another common reason can be injury from a sudden onset of high impact exercise.  The fonts and muscles weren’t prepared for the change in exercises, and they panic!  If this is the case, it can also be a sign that injury is on the rise, and may stop us from exercising all together if we do not make some changes to our program.

What should I do?

Here are two of our best practices in making our cardio days count!

  • Thoroughly warm up the hips and shoulders before and after cardio. Using bands to tense these muscles do a great job of waking up many dormant muscle groups needed for a pain-free run.
  • Alternate your workouts with resistance training. It is one of the best ways to keep your body shocked enough to maintain progress, and also prevent injury. Cardio burn stops as soon as your heart rate comes down, and your body goes back to normal for the rest of the day. Resistance training requires much more time after the workout is over to recover, which means that it will cost your body more calories for up to 2 days after the workout is over. This is the result of increasing your metabolic rate. 

How often should I exercise to maintain results?

When determining your workout schedule, keep in mind that the average human should take part in moderate exercise at least 3 times a week for overall health. If you are doing resistance training, this should be sufficient enough to give you moderate result.  Your body will continue to burn higher amounts of calories for up to 2 days post workout (increase in metabolic rate). This is really helpful in working towards weight loss, without having to be in the gym every day. Unfortunately, if cardio is your only source of exercise during the week, your calorie burn stops when your workout ends. Keeping a daily routine of calorie burn will be more vital to your progress.

Our Advice:

If you are looking to lose a lot of weight fast, alternate resistance training with cardio workouts. You get the benefit of that super-burn after a resistance workout, while burning lots of instant calories from cardio. If you are strapped for time and can only devote 3 days max to moderate exercise, then try interval training. Its the best way to burn a ton of calories while stressing muscle tissue for that long-term metabolic burn. Here is one of our favorite home High intensity interval training (H.I.I.T) workouts: 

45 seconds / 15 seconds Rest          

3 Rounds = 15 minutes

Be sure to add in a warm up routine (we recommend 5-10 minutes) and a cool down (we like slow and steady cardio 10- 20 minutes). 

1. Stair Climbers (use stairs in home, or a step)

2. Push ups (Standard, or on your knees)

3. Squat Jumps (or Bodyweight squats)

4. Mountain Climbers

5. Burpees 

Level Up Fitness Waltham offer Small Group Training sessions, including high intensity H.I.I.T Classes. Click here to sign up for a Small Group H.I.I.T Session!

OR Check Out our FREE Workshop Series December 8th 2018! Learn to build better workouts at home! Click here to register now!

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The Diet Rollercoaster

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The Diet Roller Coaster. Are You On It?

I have noticed that once clients have started a normal exercise regimen, food then becomes the determining factor of success and failure. Many people take up one of the “fad diet” offers that become so very popular this time of year. With the best intentions, they buy all the products, shakes, tupperware, pills, and most likely, start to lose weight. Then one day, the progress halts. Maybe it is because it became too much to keep up with, or maybe their body has just decided to stop responding, often leading to regaining weight. Either way, it is very unmotivating. So they find another rollercoaster to ride.  

To avoid the constant search for the new trend diet, you can make smaller changes to the things you already eat, for better results. No product purchase necessary.

Here are some facts and tips about the rollercoaster ride to better health. 

The Facts

  • The dieting syndrome affects approximately 70% of women, and about 40% of men. 
  • Most diets receive maximum progress in the first 3 months, then progress slows significantly
  • Fad diets often lead to unnatural rapid weight loss is mostly commonly due to the body burning more lean muscle tissue than fat for total weight loss. This means you could lose weight, but have more fat.
  • The faster your body loses something, the faster the body is going to work twice as hard to replace it. This is how the ups and downs of the rollercoaster begins

How to get off the Rollercoaster

1. Delete the word “Diet” from your Dictionary.

Diets usually equate to short bouts of unsustainable eating habits. In the end, they mostly screw with your metabolism and leave you struggling to lose weight. Instead, lets call it a “Nutrition Plan”. 

2. Make your meals smaller, and more often. 

Giving your body too much food at a time overwhelms you digestive system. Instead of sorting through the good and the bad, your body stores it all away as adipose tissue or “fat”. Cutting your meal portions, and eating every 3-4 hours lets your digestive system act most efficiently, keeps your metabolism awake, and keeps your energy balanced throughout the day. 

3. Watch your carbohydrate intake.

This is where we most often get into trouble. Think of carbs (breads, starches, rice, sugars) as food choices that are necessary when doing strenuous activity only. If you are not burning high amounts of calories today, then you do not need a lot of high carb foods.

4. Drink Water

Keeping your system properly hydrated can help with increasing your energy levels, curbs sugary food cravings, and decreases the amount of time you may be sore after a workout. 

5. Give it Time

As much as we all would love to drop 10 lbs of fat in a week, for 3 months straight, it is just unrealistic, and unhealthy. We like to use a safe number of 1-2 lbs of weight loss a week, or 1-2% of your total body weight.  Set realistic goals, and be patient. At least when the results do come, they are more likely to stick. 

6. Exercise Regularly

The Federal guidelines for Adults is 150 minutes of weekly exercise, including 2 days a week of strength training. Creating a regular exercise routine will help maintain blood sugar levels, and properly use any food that has been stored for energy. Exercise builds healthy muscle tissue that fight the creation, and build up of fat. Plus, if you stray from your nutrition plan for a short period of time, it will be much easier to burn off what you over-ate, and you can stay on track more easily.  

If you are looking for some guidance, we have some great weight loss programs, and resources. Click here to schedule a Complimentary Fitness Assessment

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Want to get Toned? Read This First!

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What does “Toned” really mean?

Whenever I am working with a new female client, in particular, I often hear them say “I just want to get toned”. Where the definition of toned is often the same between client and trainer, the path to getting there can to be filled with misconceptions and misleading for a new client. As a seasoned trainer, I am learning to spend much more time explaining the benefits and purpose of each type of training program. Hopefully this post will give you a better understanding of how to get the results you REALLY want!

 The Misconceptions of Training for Muscle Definition

Muscle Definition is a necessity to being “Toned”. In fact, it is the definition. Yet, for some reason, I receive the most kick-back from clients when it comes time to pump iron. The fear is that they are lifting too much weight and will start to look bulky. Most clients looking to tone, do lots of cardio and endurance to get to the body they are looking for, and become frustrated when they lose more weight, but still don’t feel anymore toned. This downward spiral is because it is muscle we are missing.

What does “Toned” look like?

For most of us, toned shows muscle definition around the front and back of arms, and a flat stomach. There is a defined jaw line,  no folds around the bra strap area, and no love handles over our jeans. You will look and feel goooooood!! Toned means tightening up the body you are in now, looking like you are fit and strong… but not too strong… (Am I right?)

This disconnect between the want of being toned, and the work it takes to get there is where the problem lies. Some feel that the weights they are lifting make them feel like they are training to be a body builder. They are absolutely right! You want to build your body to look a certain way (toned), so you must build it. But not all body builders look alike. You can train for massive muscles, or just to lean out.

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Tips For Getting Toned

1. Healthy Eating Habits

First off, if you think lifting weights is going to make you look bulky, reinvestigate your food. Most people are currently eating to support weight gain. That is what will make you bulky, not the lifting. Hands down, your eating habits are going to have a direct effect on your progress. Plus, your nutrition is probably the #1 dictator of how much fat you store in your visceral (stomach) area. Storing fat in your stomach doesn’t feel or look good, and you are building layers of fat around your vital organs. Myfitnesspal.com is a FREE and easy website and phone app that can help you getting started balancing your food.

2. Build Muscle

Building muscle means that you will need to be lifting a challenging weight. By challenging, I mean something you can do 8-10 reps of, but probably not more. This type of exercise should optimally happen 3 times a week, for at least 6 weeks.  If you want to see muscle definition, you firt have to have muscle to show the defintion of. This will not make you “bulky” (promise), but during this phase, you probably won’t see a dramatic weight loss either. Be patient! It is all a part of the plan.

3. Build Endurance

Once you have muscles to show, you will need to get rid of the layers of fat on top so you can see them. Now is the time to burn calories and shed the top ;ayers of fat. This is a great time to do low weight, high rep resistance training. This phase takes the muscles that you have spent the last 6 weeks building, and uses it to burn more fat, faster. The more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn over muscle tissue. Repeat this sequence of muscle gain and endurance phase until the desired result is achieved (and then after that to maintain it).

Our team of trainers are always available to sit and meet with you to discuss what you can do to reach your fitness goals. Click here to schedule a Complimentary assessment to get more personalize information to reach your goals.

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7 Steps To Surviving Holiday Food

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The holidays season is approaching! That means, food, candy canes, briskets, stuffing, and lots of other goodies are next on the menu. I bet you are thinking of just forgetting all of your hard work, and starting fresh with a New Years Resolution, aren’t you? Not so fast. What if we found a way to have our cake and eat it too? (or apple pie? Insert favorite holiday food here). 

 Since food is an important part of many holidays, celebrations, family and cultural traditions, Consider these 7 tips for fully enjoying the holiday season without gaining weight!

 1. Go for a Walk

Go for a walk, or mini workout with family before the festivities. Your body will get a head start at burning calories, and you’ll digest more efficiently.

2. Have Seconds

You read that right. Have a small plate of food now, then wait a hour, and have seconds, if your still hungry. Or pack yourself a plate to go. Most people will find that they are satisfied with the smaller portion when given enough time to digest it. Even if you eat more food, your body will appreciate the time to digest properly in between. 

3. Snacks before Dinner

Eating a light snack before going to holiday dinner parties will eliminate your desire to fill your plate. Some trail mix or fruit should be enough, and when you arrive to the event, you will be more likely to eat a smaller portion and still feel satisfied.  

4. Log your food ahead of time

Log the foods you want to eat in your food tracker before the feast. Decide which foods you really want to eat, and calculate how much you can have before you get there. I just use Myftinesspal.com for convenience from my phone. 

5. Choose your beverages wisely

Ciders, Juices, sodas, and alcohol are all super high in calories. They can quickly take up your caloric FOOD intake, if you are not careful. Try light wines and beers, and non-alcoholic mixers (soda waters etc) for social drinking. I’m not saying you can’t drink the Egg Nog (I LOVE THE EGG NOG), I’m saying to just enjoy one, and find less filling drinks to socialize with. My social drink of choice is a flavored vodka and seltzer, and 2 limes. It’s less than 50 calories and tastes great! 

6. Have a little…

If you really want the food being served, have a small helping. Then double up on the vegetables and nutritious helpings to keep you full. You will get to taste everything, but only fill up on the good stuff.

7. Enjoy your holiday festivities! 

Overeating one day won’t make you gain weight! It will take days of overeating for that to happen. Have a day to enjoy yourself, and get back on track tomorrow. 

Now go out and enjoy the holiday season!

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