Cutting Weight in Wrestling: A Tale of Two Hormones.

Wrestling is hard! It is perhaps the most difficult sport for which to prepare: Wrestling requires athletes to be both strong and fast with great endurance; to possess the flexibility of a gymnast and the ability to prepare technically and tactically for all opponents. Great wrestlers aren’t just well rounded; they must be exceptional at all physical and mental aspects of their game. To make it even harder, the process of cutting weight adds a challenge and stress to wrestling that most other athletes never experience.

In order to be prepared, wrestling has no off season. As soon as the competitive season ends, preparation for the next begins. The off season is dominated by strength and conditioning work. Wrestlers building their bodies, increasing strength and muscle mass to prepare the largest body possible to enter into their weight class. A huge price is paid for every ounce of muscle--wrestlers can’t afford to give that away with poor weight cutting practices. It’s important to understand, that when weight is cut properly, the wrestler can gain a competitive advantage. But done wrong, hours of hard work go down the drain.

Cutting weight correctly gives a wrestler an advantage. It involves two elements: (1)stripping out as much fat as possible and (2) wrestling lean, with short-term dehydration to accomplish the rest.

In order to strip or use body fat, athletes must understand the role of the hormone insulin. Insulin is the dominant hormone involved in fat storage or usage. When insulin is low, stored fat can be used for fuel. When insulin is high, the body will not release fat for fuel, it will simply try to store more fat. The key to lowering insulin is lowering the glycemic index of the food and fluid you consume. If you’re a wrestler cutting weight, you should eliminate refined sugar products from your diet. Drinking sugar-based products (including popular sport drinks and protein bars) is completely counter productive. Not only is the sugar creating a strong insulin response, it passes through the stomach quickly providing no appetite satiation. Being hungry and burning up your valuable protein stores is no way to cut weight and win.

Many wrestlers can successfully dehydrate for short periods of time (less than 24 hours), rehydrating following weigh-in with no remarkable impact on performance. The key, though, is to keep the dehydration period as short as possible. When you dehydrate for longer periods, you body produces another hormone called vasopressin. Vasopressin causes the kidneys to restrict water loss. Your body views this as stress and will not only restrict water loss through urine and sweat, but will also begin to regulate the amount of energy your can produce, causing fatigue and sluggish performance. Being fully hydrated at the time of competition is important. It’s also important to be fully hydrated throughout your training.

Hydrus Performance Hydration Concentrate hits the two things wrestlers need to be lean and fully hydrated at the time of competition. Hydrus has no sugar! No sugar means no insulin response from Hydrus and you stay in fat burning mode longer. When you’ve made weight and it’s time to re-hydrate, Hydrus’ exclusive NanosomeTM Technology provides higher electrolyte and water absorption—"5x and up to 8x more effective"*—than traditional hydration products. That means more water to the cells and your back to full strength at match time.

Bad weight cutting causes you to lose muscle and lose energy. For optimum performance and weight management, the key is to eat a diet high in lean proteins and good fats with low glycemic index carbohydrates which means no sugar.

The Cost of Coach's Bad Communication

As athletes, we invest our soles and, according to researchers, on the average of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve excellence.  As high school coaches we trade time with our families and leave part of ourselves preparing our athletes.  As college coaches we pay our bills with the vocation, but our investments in the athletes begin to climb financially too.  As professional coaches, our organizational investment in our athletes is beyond belief.  This article very elegantly addresses how all of those investments can be vaporized with a single athlete/coach mis/mal-communication.  I've excerpted several portions of the article Coaching communication issues with elite female athletes: Two Norwegian case studies  Kristiansen  2012  Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.  This is an important read for any coach.

"An important aspect of the coach-elite athlete relationship is to produce enhanced performance and success in elite competitions."

"while communication may seem to be working well from the coach's perspective....athletes often disagree.  It is the perceived ineffective communication that may become a major source of strain for elite athletes."

"Coaching is more than talking....it is 'a set of strategies designed to increase a coach's ability to influence the behavior of others more effectively."

"A good coach must be able to see each athlete as a unique persona and adapt his/her performance enhancement system to each athlete's particular needs."

"Part of the demand placed on the athletes was the expectation that they would become '24-hour-athletes."  "They went from 'deliberate play' to 'deliberate practice' in one ..jump."

"It was all about 'you follow the routine or you are out of the team.'  They would not accept my views...I was labeled difficult and unwilling to work hard."

"finding the right training strategies is very demanding."

"A good coach is characterized by the understanding that "different athletes require different things from their coaches at different points in their careers."

"Having several coaches may negatively affect communication if the roles are unclear within the teams..."

"Different coaches did not seem to talk together about the total training load."

The athletes "perceived that they were the problem and not their interpretation of the training load to which they were assigned:  the more they asked, the less they were listened to and they then become difficult "problem athletes'"

"their experiences are not unique.  There is documented evidence that a lack of knowledge and awareness of risky strategies may be detrimental to the long-term development of athletes."

"It was quite clear...that they experienced demotivation when they perceived that they were failing to achieve the training load criteria of the coaches.  And when their performance also deteriorated, then this was even more demotivational.  In the motivational literature, it is recommended that for long-term development and persistence, athletes should have internal criteria of success."

"A mindful organization will notice novel events quickly, such as when an athlete is struggling with recovery.  NGBs should have routines that will lead to critical self-reflection, learning, and action.  In the sport context, the ability to differentiate between being tired and being in the early stages of burnout may be analyzed by these principles."

"The opposite of being mindful is being mindless.  The is a behavior characterized by being rule and routine governed and on autopilot.  Hence, to treat all athletes the same way may be considered a mindless behavior."

Energy Systems - What we can learn from wrestlers cutting weight

ENERGY SYSTEMS - WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM WRESTLERS CUTTING WEIGHT.

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding energy systems and their application to strength and conditioning coaching.  I’ve had an interesting case in my facility over the past three months that I’d like to share.

I’ve had two wrestlers from our local high school team in training with me this fall and winter.  These are two kids wrestling adjacent weight classes, but getting to their weights have been divergent journeys.  The two athletes began training with me about 6 weeks prior to the start of wrestling season.  The lighter of the two wakes up every day within a pound of his weigh class at  a natural 5-6% body fat.  The heavier, has had to cut about 20 lbs to get to weight.  The process has required a very structured eating plan with workouts that have led to and average weight loss of two percent of body weight per week.  The two have participated side-by-side in team based training and condition since the beginning of the wrestling season with the only difference in training being the additional work the heavier wrestler has been putting in at my facility following practice 3 days a week and on weekends they’ve not been competing, or morning runs.  Additional workouts have averaged 4 per week.

When the two began training they were both power tested.  The testing protocol included a power at anaerobic threshold test using a SCIFIT Pro II ergometer and Zephyr Bio harness.  I also measure maximum 10 second power output, also using the SCIFIT Pro II.  Results of the test are collected using ViA Performance Systems  KeyMaster/PowerGraph Software.

The entry testing points included:

Lighter Wrestler Wt. 122 lbs
Peak Wattage  220 watts @ heart rate of 202
Anaerobic Threshold  150 watts @ Heart rate of 178

Heavier Wrestler Wt. 150 lbs
Peak Wattage 180 watts @ heart rate of 182
Anaerobic Threshold 160 watts @ heart rate of 166

The two wrestlers were re-tested during Christmas break.

Lighter Wrestler Wt. 122 lbs
Peak Wattage 230 @ heart rate of 195
Anaerobic Threshold 170 watts @ heart rate of 184

Heavier Wrestler Wt. 135
Peak Wattage 270 watts @ heart rate of 178
Anaerobic Threshold 240 watts @ heart rate of 167

			Peak		A.T.
	test	Wt	Watts	Heart Rate	Watts	Heart Rate
lighter	1	122	220	203	150	179
	2	122	230	195	160	184
		diff	+10		+10
heavier	1	150	180	182	160	166
	2	135	270	178	240	167
		-15	+90		+80

I believe there are two points that coaches need to glean from this example.  1.  If you were to only look at the absolute improvement numbers of the two athletes, it looks like one is out working the other.   This assumption is true, but the type of work being done is critical.  When you look that the energy system component portion of the improvement, both athletes saw around a 4% (10 watts) improvement of total energy output being contributed by high energy (anaerobic) sources.  This makes sense when you review the practice habits of wrestlers in general and in particularly this team.   Conditioning to this coach is wrestling live, intense intervals and sprinting.  And a nearly 5% improvement of energy output in 10 weeks of training is admirable.  

But the most impressive thing to learn is the potential that exists when athlete does focus on individual energy systems development.  The only difference in the two athletes training was the heavier wrestlers completion of additional low-level (aerobic) training sessions.  These sessions were either work load or heart rate limited.  When the wrestler was running the morning his was restricted to a heart rate limit of 160.  He would wear a heart rate monitor and brought it to me to download and make part of his record.  When he trained in my facility, his work loads were programmed to be at or below anaerobic threshold levels and heart rate tracked.  That sub-threshold training yielded a power improvement of  80 watts  which came from growth in the aerobic (sub-threshold) system.

Two athletes training side-by-side in practice.   One on borderline starvation (<1400 Kcal/day) diet.  But the athlete who is shrinking, is actually improving power to half again as much as when he started the program.

The new rules regarding weight loss in wrestling are good!  But they’re changing more than just weight loss practices.  We have to pay attention to what the weight loss practices of the past did for an athlete’s conditioning.  Wrestlers who used to cut big weight would do at least two additional workouts per day more than their at-weight team mates.  We would put on plastics and sweats in the morning and at night and do a “light” run or jump rope session.  We worked just hard enough to break a sweat, we thought we were just cutting weight.  What we didn’t know at the time was that we were building low level energy systems!  This is a major change in the sport and strength and conditioning coaches need to be cognisant of the entire training portfolio of an athlete.

Fitness and P4 Medicine

FITNESS AND P4 MEDICINE

OK fitness professionals, have you heard of P4 medicine yet?  If you haven't, you need to get up to speed!  A quick Google search will tell you a lot.  P4 stands for Predictive, Preventive, Personalized and Participatory.  A fitness pro's groin should be quaking at this point. 

One web site states:

"Today's medicine is reactive: we wait until someone is sick before administering treatment. Medicine of the future will be predictive and preventive, examining the unique biology of an individual to assess their probability of developing various diseases and then designing appropriate treatments, even before the onset of a disease. Today's medicine is also myopic: we use only a few measurements to diagnose disease and are generally unable to make fine distinctions between individuals or between subtle variations of the same disease. Medicine of the future will use more sophisticated measurements, as well as more measurements overall, thereby yielding accurate health assessments for truly personalized treatments."   

http://www.systemsbiology.org/intro_to_isb_and_systems_biology/Predictive_Preventive_Personalized_and_Participatory

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but lets review: 

"Regular physical activity, fitness, and exercise are critically important for the health and well being of people of all ages. Research has demonstrated that virtually all individuals can benefit from regular physical activity, whether they participate in vigorous exercise or some type of moderate health-enhancing physical activity. Even among frail and very old adults, mobility and functioning can be improved through physical activity. Therefore, physical fitness should be a priority for Americans of all ages. ...physical activity has been shown to reduce the risk of developing or dying from heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and high blood pressure."

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/physicalactivity/

I read a great book over the holidays, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There."  Keep that title in mind!  The opening chapter of the book starts with:

"You know those maps in shopping malls that say, "you are here"?  they exist to orient you in unfamiliar territory, to tell you where you are, (help show you) where you want to go, and how to get there.  A few people never need these maps.  They're blessed with an internal compass that orients them automatically. They always make the correct turn and end up where they intend via the most economical rout.   Some people actually go through life with this unerring sense of direction.  It guides them not only in shopping malls but in their school years, careers, marriages, and friendships.  When we meet people  like this, we say their grounded.  They know who they are and surprises will only be pleasant surprises.  The are our role models and heroes.  ... What all of these role models have in common is an exquisite sense of who they are, which translates into perfect pitch about how them come across to others.  A few people never seem to need any help in getting to where they want to go.  They have a built-in GPS mechanism."

We refer to these people with the "built in GPS" in the fitness world as "enthusiasts."  The fitness industry has done a great job of creating spaces for "enthusiasts"  to play.  We sell them a $19 a month membership and forget about them.  Some of them are so enthusiastic they invest a portion of their disposable income in us,  professionals,  in return for our guidance, leadership, but primarily in return for friendship and companionship.  The point is that the only successful fitness participants are the enthusiasts, those with the built in GPS. 

The evidence is that at least 80% of our population is so in-active that hypoactiviity is contributing to increased morbidity and mortality equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.   And medicine has chosen to treat the diseases of chronic inactivity like diabetes, hyper-tension and arthritis with chemicals.  And who can blame them, the face of fitness is CrossFit, P90X, BowFlex, Treadclimbers, VO2 max tests, body fat assessments.   These tools of the enthusiasts,  frankly scare the not-yet-fit friends of ours.  When a non-enthusiast walks into our glass windowed, high-designed, over optioned, hundreds of choices fitness spaces, it's like a babe in the jungle experience for them.  They will order the P90X dvd's, but plugging them in, following them, they wind up drawing dust.  We have to offer our not-yet-fit brothers and sisters other avenues of entry into the fitness lifestyle and I believe P4 is one of those avenues.

Physicians, fitness is a behavior issue first, and a physiological marker second.  Approach the integration of fitness into your practice in that manner.  Great tools exist for the assessment of an individual's
stage-of-change relative to physical activity and healthy eating.  (http://www.uri.edu/research/cprc/measures.htm#Exercise)  These can be integrated and completed outside the exam room with practical scores and counseling information ready when the physician enters the room.  This data will also be valuable in the treatment matching of your patients to programs.  Programs that your patients  will bond to immediately.(personalized)   The second recommendation I have is to measure and counsel what's important first.  (preventive)  As scientists, we get enchanted with all the extensive physiological assessment tools available.  But fitness, particularly in the non-enthusiast population begins with one simple metric, movement.  Move more, get healthier!  Unfortunately, movement  is difficult to measure to quantify in a single office based encounter.  You're going to have to connect with your patients in such a way that their willing to invest some daily effort creating a record.  The great thing is that we have "human gps" units that can hang on their waist that will collect, report and motivate the patient. (participatory).  Patients will value the information enough that they will endure the additional hassle of integrating the device into their life.

Next use in-office physiological tests that stand a chance of "connecting" to your patients and result in motivation and behavior change.  The information provided by the tests must be relevant to the goals and objectives of the patient.  VO2 only means something to freaks like us.  I can turn on CNBC or Bloomburg during the week and see a million terms and numbers that while important to someone, mean very little to me.  If I had to learn them to invest my money, I'd wind up keeping it all in a ball jar in the back yard.  That's the effect we have on everyone else with our current fitness assessments.  We have to offer "mutual fund" assessment and exercise.  I would suggest using the results of the stage-of-change assessment to direct your next steps in physiologic testing.  Graded exercise testing should be reserved for those in the Action or Maintenance stage.  For those who are in either pre-contemplation, contemplation, or early preparation, use simple heart rate variability test whose results will provide an opportunity to discuss activity volume and intensity.  If someone is symptomatic or risk qualified for a stress test, the stress test results will provide the same opportunity.  The other physiologic test that can be completed in a medical office environment and will be beneficial is the use of a 4 point BIA body composition assessment.  But how the results are presented to the patient are important!  I am going to write in an upcoming post about how the goal of weight loss is one of the biggest reasons fitness is failing.  But for now, report the results of the BIA in terms of volume of lean mass (how big is your motor) and the ratio of stored energy to lean mass.  These are terms that will motivate activity and behaviors that promote healthy patients.  At the end of the day, measure the success of your program by how much more your patients are moving!

If your a fitness professional, P4 medicine is one of the opportunities we've been waiting for that provides a real connection between medicine and fitness.  If you would like to learn more about systems that can help deliver the kinds of programs discussed here, feel free to contact us.  If your a physician, there are great exercise professionals that can help you deliver quality, integrated fitness as part of your practice.  If you would like some help doing so, let us know, we can help.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

Don Moxley 

Crossing the Chasm - Future of Fitness Version

CROSSING THE CHASM - THE FUTURE OF FITNESS VERSION

A good friend, Robert Dyer, sent me a link to one of the most important documents that's appeared in our industry recently.  If you haven't seen it, Les Mills International partnered with the Nielsen Company to publish "The Future of Fitness: A White Paper."  It can be found atwww.futureoffitnesswhitepaper.com.  If you don't have a copy or haven't registered at the web site, you should do so!  There is a lot in this paper that needs to be digested by our industry.  As I've read over the paper, contemplating the future, I'd like you all to consider a parallel I believe is relevant.

In the technology development, marketing and adoption life cycle, a standard was introduced in 1991 by author Geoffrey Moore in his book"Crossing The Chasm."  Moore's work defines a technology product adoption model where new products are purchased initially by "innovators"and "visionaries."  This group of enthusiast make up the "early market." As a technology is brought from idea to early market, typically lots of "features" are hung on the product from the advice and feedback of early adopters and are included to create a product that appeals to even more consumers.  The challenge is that in Moore's model, lying between the early adopters and the next group, the early majority, a chasm appears.  The early adopters are consumers who are described as "enthusiasts" and "visionaries."   The next stage, Early Majority are described as "pragmatists. "  Even more daunting, the next groups, Late Majority and Laggeds are described as conservatives and skeptics.  The kind of thinking that appeals to the early adopters WILL NOT appeal to the Early Majority.  But the reward to companies and industries for crossing the chasm is that more than 70% of the market, early and late majority, and laggards,  lie on the other side of the chasm. Companies must change the way they think to effectively move from the enthusiast to the larger majority of the market.

On page 2 of the FOFWP three key challenges are identified from the research: 1. How do we remain relevant among the "converted" consumers(read enthusiasts).  2. Can we improve our offer to those who enjoy fitness but don't like going to the gym (pragmatists?).  3. How do we keep the industry fresh, relevant and competitive in the decades ahead..."  On page 1 the authors point out that "17% of adults belong to health clubs in any single country, and market penetration of10.5% is enough to be among the top ten of all countries."  When you look at this data graphically, our industry is in the "early adopter" stage of the life cycle model.  It seems that we're peering over a chasm at the majority of our potential customers.  Trying to light a rocket under the same thinking that brought us to this point won't be enough to get us across.  Fitness providers have to change the way they think!

What do the following have in common?  Golds Gym and Apple? YMCA and Google?  Personal Trainers and Technology Enthusiasts? Jocks and Geeks?  Until now, they've had very little in common only appearing together as ends of a comparative spectrum.  But our industry is dominated by brands who cater to early adopters like jocks, personal trainers and fitness enthusiast.   To date we've felt progressive stuffing some basic off-the-shelf consumer technology into our current offerings.  I call that putting lipstick on a pig.  As we examine our futures, we need to break away from the mental models that have led us here, just catering to the enthusiast, and begin to build an industry that is more approachable.  I read an article in the Washington Post today that was telling the story of a college that required students with a BMI or over 30 to attend a "Fitness for Life Class" prior to graduation.  That's progressive thinking, send the fat kids to gym class!   We need to prove that our product is stable,(doors stay open, associating with other credible institutions) and our products are reliable and predictable.   We need to see that the pessimistic, conservatives that make up the late majority (we'll probably have a few from that college) can see real return-on-investment.

These are the kinds of things we think about at ViA Performance Systems and you see in action at Lemonade Neighborhood Fitness.   When I opened Lemonade, I wasn't looking for the next big thing that would draw in the enthusiast from the facilities next door.  I asked "what are the basics that most people need in order to more effectively enjoy the life they're given."  I'm proud to say that our clientèle is just that!   We have a new video up on the Lemonade site http://bit.ly/9qpo2m titled People and Programs.  You can also see it athttp://bit.ly/cHuG2Q on YouTube.  I'd love to get you feedback because I know, me and anyone else, is smarter than me!

Thanks,

Don

Younger Next Year and Fitness Bank Accounts

YOUNGER NEXT YEAR AND FITNESS BANK ACCOUNTS

I was driving yesterday, listening to our local public radio station which is in the middle of a pledge drive.  The incentive for contributing that hour was a copy of the book"Younger Next Year" by Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry S. Lodge. The subtitle of the book is "turn back your biological clock." The interview was with Chris Crowley.  This caught my ear for a couple reasons. First, the discussion was nearly entirely about fitness!  And secondly, I spent most of the last decade selling a product called BodyAge. BodyAge is a fitness assessment and programming tool that gives fitness professional  a wonderful opportunity to tell your clients how they can be 5 years younger on their next birthday - rather than just telling them they're fat and out of shape. 

But what really got my ear was a statement that Chris made during the interview.  He was talking about habits and said that when someone starts an exercise program, their emotional brain will help them stay motivated for about the first three weeks.  But then, in order to succeed, the person needs to make it part of their routine.   He went on to talk about how - like saving money or investing in retirement - we needexercise to be routine. 

I agree; but routine alone is not enough!  This is where our industry is missing the boat.  In general, we have not invested in credible tracking tools that our clients can use to monitor their progress - a big part of what encourages us to "continue to invest".  Who in their right minds would continue to contribute to a savings account without credible feedback, authentic evidence of getting ahead?  We want to see that the account balance is growing!  Would you accept "Don't you feel better since you've been depositing money in your account" from your banker? I like to anticipate the day that personal trainers no longer use that line to justify the exerciser's investment.  

For the past few years,a lot of us have watched our contributions to retirement funds shrink, but we all understand what is happening.  We may have changed the modality of investment, but we continue to invest.  We invest because we understand how important it is to do so and prepare for retirement.   Progress in fitness is cyclical too!  We need tools to track our progress and make adjustments.  While some of us will exercise because we love it, most of the world knows it needs to invest in health,  they just haven't had the tools to track the value of their fitness investments. "Younger Next Year" is one of the best books I've seen when it comes to explaining the benefits of exercise and all the other tools necessary for a long vigorous life.  I cannot make a strong enough recommendation for this book.  Mr. Crowley has another book “The Younger Next Year Journal,” which by its own description is a “fill-in book with prompts that help you keep meticulous track of your workouts, your heart rate, your diet, how you feel.”  This is essentially a bank book for recording your habits.  No offense intended, but how many of you would continue to do business with a bank today that used a hand written bank book to track your deposits?  I understand that self tracking and self reporting are the number one predictor of change of habit.  But we live in the 21st century!  We need to be using systems and technology that provide immediate feedback of authentic changes in  a client's fitness.  Fitness professionals need to understand that they are competing for the minds and dreams of clients and members.  And you're competing against the spectrum of junk on infomercials and very good books that sell for $9.30 on Amazon.  

The good books and junk on tv are winning.  We need to assess our value as an ally and an asset to our clients and to those who aren't yet our clients.  We also need to avoid the reflex response of the race-to-the-bottom of pricing.  

Your services can be worth what you're profitably charging.  Your clients just need to be able to "see" what their contributions to you, their investments in their own wellness are doing for them.

We live in a time of instant access to precise information.  We retrieve our bank balances and our minute to minute portfolio performance on our cell phones.  These things are nearly universal.  Our fitness account information access needs to get to the same place.  This is a huge missing link in our industry. We're not keeping up with our clients - and therefore we're struggling to add value to their enduring pursuit of wellness on a broader scale.  

It’s important to always ask ourselves, “What is the incentive we provide our clients and members for their contributions to our business?"  We've focused on developing and adding technology based feedback systems at my studio, Lemonade Fitness,and with our ViA Performance Systems products.  This is what I think about all day.  This is where we're going and how we're growing.   Let me know if you have questions and want to know how to get on the wave.

Thanks again for your time,

Don

Health Care Reform - Make it Meaningful

"HEALTH CARE REFORM" – MAKING IT MEANINGFUL

“Health Care” and “Health Care Reform” is a debate that will affect all of our lives as Americans and one that can provide life changing opportunities for us as fitness professionals.  I have a personal story that has me convinced and serves as a reference for all of us. 

Tostart,  I want to state that I believe the best solution to the current health care finance debate is to have a free market competitive system with apublic option.  As a business owner raised in the American system of free and open competition, I believe this is better than a single payer system. 

I believe in the public option because if and when I’m in the position of needing insurance, I’ll have providers competing for my business.  

Currently,when someone in my situation (Type 2 diabetic) applies for insurance coverage,I answer the diabetic question “yes”, and they raise the cost of the program. No further questions.   I'm grouped into a very high risk group that companies view as expensive to care for. In a competitive environment with a public option, the screening question is asked and answered the same; but there is a next question. "Do you check your sugar levels on a regular basis?" Well Yes, I do!   “Do you exercise?”  Well Yes, I do!  “Can you document these things?”  Well Yes, I can!  My genetics may put me in one group, but my documentable behaviors really mean something far more important.

Regardless of whether diabetes or another chronic or potentially costly personal health issue is part of your equation, we all know the effect of exercise.  This is the where our opportunity to make a difference and benefit professionally from doing so comes in.  With the ability for us to provide evidence of exercise compliance, the ability to document meaningful evidence of"healthier" clients, and the ability to keep them committed to a beneficial fitness “prescription”, we as fitness professionals can be elevated to Wellness Professionals and Preventive Care allies to a growing universe of needy parties – from Uncle Sam to our next door neighbor.

So how’s it feel to be at the center of the solution that represents TRUE "health care reform"?