Greetings everyone!

It was so great to hear from many of you about training in the mini AX facility. I am really excited to get started and so are Scout and Tuck! I have a tentative schedule started and it looks like it will be 2- 3 person small group action until the weather agrees to grant us some more space. At which time we will have small group options up to 15 people with a drop in rate.

As a trainer, I am asked a variety of questions every day.

Here are some of the most common:

What should I be eating?
How many grams of protein should I have?
What about macros?
How much cardio should I do?
Should I lift heavy weights?
What should I be doing when I am not working out with the Trainer?

So today I am going to list a few fitness apps that I have found useful over the years. Since I can't be with you during ALL your workouts or when that second donut hits your mouth, I thought some apps would be helpful. I also think that having a fitness watch with a heart monitor is an essential part of your fitness uniform. The watch helps you track activity, lets you create daily goals, and keeps you honest! Some of these apps work on some smart fitness watches as well.

My Fitness Pal
I like this because it has a customizable macro tracker. I set my protein at 40%, knowing I won't hit it but I want to know how close I can get. I recently discovered that while I have been preaching protein for SO long I am barely hitting my own daily goals. NOT COOL! I don't care about the calories as much but it does give you some measurable goals. If you are under calories, you will not burn fat and build muscle. I am frequently under calories so that was an eye opener as well. You have to do your best to log your food and exercise. If you have a fitness watch, your steps will also be counted. I like to keep a close watch on on those sugar grams as well, especially at my age, my metabolism does not fire like it use to, even with all of my workouts.

StrongLifts
The goal of this program is strength gains and the very foundations of the training program are compound movements. Using two different workouts A: back squats, bench press, and barbell or dumbbell rows. B: back squats, military press, and deadlifts. These are full body workouts. There are also recommended accessory exercises and lifts. Notice that back squats are in both workouts. Personally, I cannot use a barbell for Squats (too much spine compression on bad discs) so I use dumbbells and adapt the squat portion of the process.

Starting Strength
The program can be broken down into two workout days, Day A and Day B. The entire body is worked each session. As the trainee progresses through the program, Days A and B are slightly modified to take into account the adaptations in the body of the lifter.  This is a little different than the Strong Lifts app as the rep count is different and they add power cleans and remove rows.

Both of the above apps and programs are effective and easy to adapt. There are videos available for proper form with each program. It has been proven that lifting heavy is the only way to reverse osteoporosis, and the most effective way to burn fat and build lean muscle. While it is still important to get those full body cross training workouts in for endurance, cardio, flexibility, and all things sweaty, we still need to lift heavy weights for overall conditioning of the human body.

Map My Run
This app tracks your run, walk, hike or bike ride. It lets you share your workout results with your friends, it analyzes data, and can report your stats throughout your workout. I have not used this one as much since I do have a fitness watch that tracks much of this for me. Having said that, remember all fitness watches are not created equally either. I use an Apple watch but I know folks that swear by the FITBIT series. It really does depend on your goals. I like that my watch has daily goals, heart monitor, tracks my steps, and movement, and I can get a pretty little graph at the end of the day that tells me why I deserved that beer!

Hope this was helpful! JUST KEEP MOVING!

Trainer out!