R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What it Means to Us… Now.

By Train­ers for the Day: Julie, Kate, Jeff

I think it’s fair to say that Jeff, Kate and I all had a healthy amount of respect for the train­ers prior to our expe­ri­ence as ‘Train­ers for the Day’ Fri­day, Nov. 11. It would be hard to come out to Pied­mont Park rain or shine, bit­ter cold or swel­ter­ing heat, in the pre-dawn hours, 4–5 days a week if this weren’t the case. All that said, I believe I can speak for the three of us (which I will in this entire post, because I vol­un­teered to write it) in say­ing THAT respect has sig­nif­i­cantly increased after our expe­ri­ence last week.

Even with respect for the train­ers, we each entered into this oppor­tu­nity with one sim­ple thing in mind: pay­back. We wanted revenge, pun­ish­ment, jus­tice — it all came down to hav­ing the win­ning bid so we could enjoy watch­ing the train­ers endure what­ever form of tor­ture we could come up with in our sick, wicked lit­tle minds. We wanted them to gasp in fear when they heard their fate, to fall to their knees as bro­ken human beings when they real­ized the just couldn’t go on, to beg us to make it stop and see in their eyes the mis­er­able mir­ror of our own worst day at boot camp. We envi­sioned stand­ing above the train­ers, as they hud­dled together in tears, and laugh with gusto as our fel­low boot campers car­ried us off into the sun­rise on their shoul­ders shout­ing, ‘Viva La Revolution!’

In the end, we openly admit there’s no doubt what the train­ers do is NOT easy. The time and effort needed to develop a work­out includ­ing a proper warm up and cool down to pre­vent injury, a pre­cisely timed and well orga­nized ‘main event’ to be sure to bring value to all who rose so early to join us, yet still be unique and fun (espe­cially for the train­ers). With full time jobs, fluc­tu­a­tion in our sched­ules mak­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion tough, busi­ness travel or per­sonal com­mit­ments that sapped the energy and focus we had as the week pro­gressed — it def­i­nitely came down to the wire to get it all done.

On behalf of Jeff, Kate and myself, I want to say thank you to all of the train­ers, but it hardly seems like enough. You do this for free, you do this for char­ity, you do this with fel­low train­ers you call friends, and you do this for 30+ strangers any given month with the kind of self­less­ness I, per­son­ally, have seen very few peo­ple exhibit so freely. For your unend­ing well of encour­age­ment, for the push we often need but don’t always appre­ci­ate, for your time and energy, the smiles, the laughs, and, if we’re lucky, the build­ing friend­ships based on a mutual desire for health and well­ness, thank you is hol­low but all I can find that even comes close.

Check out all the pho­tos from Friday’s workout! →

Warm-up vs. Stretching

Side note: Thank you to all our friends that joined us this morn­ing for our Try Us Out day! You all seem ready for a full month! Sign up today!

BY DANIEL

Ever won­der why we stretch after a work­out, and seem to wear our­selves out before the work­out has even started? Recent research sug­gest that rais­ing our heart rate for a period of 3 min­utes, or longer, will increase our blood cir­cu­la­tion and help pre­vent injury dur­ing intense exercise.

A proper warm-up should improve the blood flow to the work­ing mus­cle, which results in decreased mus­cle stiff­ness and enhanced per­for­mance. The increased mus­cle tem­per­a­ture also increases the effi­ciency in which the mus­cle expands and con­tracts releas­ing more oxy­gen and improv­ing endurance.

Stretch­ing, on the other hand, pro­vides no insur­ance against injury, but is still an essen­tial part of any fit­ness pro­gram. Stretch­ing is the only way to improve one’s range of motion and is the pri­mary method for car­ing for one’s joints and lig­a­ments. For best results, stretch­ing should be per­formed when the mus­cle is warm and each pos­ture held for at least 30 sec­onds. Long-term effects of stretch­ing can be real­ized in about six weeks.

For more infor­ma­tion on warm-ups and stretch­ing please check out these arti­cles on About​.com:

The Warm Up — How To Warm Up Before Exercise

When to Stretch — Why Experts Rec­om­mend Ath­letes Stretch After Exercise

Did you enjoy today’s warm-up? Drop us a line by click­ing “Com­ments” above!

Good for What Ails Ya

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a re-post from last year. There­fore, some of the com­ments are also from last year and may or may not be rel­e­vant to today’s workout.

BY LEIGH

After a cou­ple days at camp you may be expe­ri­enc­ing some sore­ness. While that is to be expected, espe­cially if you are new to a fit­ness regime, there are some things to con­sider to help you through it.

• Stretch: Stretch­ing through out the day helps to keep you loose and lim­ber, as well as increas­ing blood cir­cu­la­tion to the mus­cles. Increase blood flow will accel­er­ate heal­ing and over­time will increase energy lev­els due to the increased accel­er­a­tion. How­ever, If you are afraid you have pulled a mus­cle or have a mus­cle tear, do not stretch that mus­cle it will only get worse.
• Drink: Water that is. Most causes of sore­ness include a build up of lac­tic acid in the mus­cles. Drink­ing water is a good way to flush out that build up.
• Go for a soak: It might sound a lit­tle hokey and/or grandma-ish, but tak­ing an epsom salt bath can do won­ders for your sore mus­cles. You can pick up a box at any drug store.
• The cold treat­ment: Cold show­ers or ice baths get the blood flow­ing through the mus­cles to the sur­face. As men­tioned before the increased blood cir­cu­la­tion helps accel­er­ate healing.
• Don’t stop: Sore­ness should be expected after most if not all of our work­outs. It is one of many sig­nals from your body that you are push­ing your­self and get­ting stronger. By con­tin­u­ing your exer­cise reg­i­men you are rais­ing your bod­ies lim­its and over time less likely to expe­ri­ence sore­ness for the same level of exer­tion. Feel­ing a lit­tle sore should be one of your goals for every workout.

If you are expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing that feels more than just sore­ness or you have incurred an actual injury, try RICE. Though not of the brown, white, or fried variety.

• R: Rest. Take a day or two off to give your­self a break. Try to limit any activ­ity that results in pain.
• I: Ice. Apply ice to the affected area. See icing guide­lines here.
• C: Com­pres­sion. Get an ACE ban­dage and wrap the injured area. Be care­ful not to wrap it too tightly though, you want to make sure the blood is circulating.
• E: Ele­va­tion. Prop that twisted ankle up on some pil­lows. Wher­ever the injured area is, try to get it ele­vated higher than your heart.

Let us know if you have occurred an injury or if some­thing feels awk­ward. There is a good chance that one of the train­ers or even a vet­eran camper may have expe­ri­enced some­thing sim­i­lar. How­ever, none of us are doc­tors or nurses, so if you think it is some­thing seri­ous do not hes­i­tate to get a pro­fes­sional med­ical opinion.

Let us know how you’re feel­ing after Day 2. Post a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments’ link above this post!