Albany Fitness

Best Fitness will be selling American Heart Association wrist bands and pins, all proceeds will go to the American Heart Association!

(Click to view and print flyer)

Join us on Saturday January 28th for our Member Appreciation Day. Breakfast will be served from 8:30am to Noon compliments of ShopRite!

For more details and to print out flyer, click here.

Group X and Personal Training (MEMBER APPRECIATION DAY)

Free Event for Member and Guests to Attend January 28th 8am-Noon, see poster for details.

..By Nicole Quaresimo

Davis a member of Best Fitness lost 97lbs since she became a member one year ago!

Check out some of the fun exercises you could learn by signing up to meet with one of our Fitness Professionals.

"My name is Shannon Davis and about a year ago I came to Best Fitness at a weight of 265. I currently weigh 168. With coming to Best Fitness, I lost a lot of weight and I am very proud of myself. The classes helped tremendously, without classes I would not be where I am now. I learned a lot and I gained confidence in myself that I can do anything I put my mind to. The trainers and instructors at best fitness gave me encouragement and is always there for any questions. Coming to best fitness changed my life and I now am happier than I ever was."

By Larissa Lytwyn/HealthyLife

Whether you’re maintaining your top form or shaving off those last 10 pounds, you probably know the importance of balancing cardio and strength training. But what if those crunches aren’t translating into the results you want to see? Or if the push-ups you’ve been doing have only resulted in significant lower back pain?

Doing the exercises the right way is vital — not only for improved results but to prevent injury as well. “Sit-ups can be really difficult when you’re making a big C-curve with your lower spine, because you aren’t using your core,” says Hollan Bonjukian, a trainer at Steuben Athletic Club in Albany. “You might be straining your neck or contracting your shoulders.” Over time, she adds, you can increase the risk of getting a herniated disc, which is a tear in the spine’s outer, fibrous ring. Herniated discs can also result from improper weight lifting.

And if you aren’t using your whole body as a single unit doing those push-ups, Bonjukian adds, “shoulders come up” and you aren’t getting the full benefit of the exercise. The spine curves, she says, “and you can get significant back pain that can stop you from doing them altogether.”

Jason DeFalco, a trainer at Healthplex in Clifton Park, is a self-described “big fan of planking.” Planking is essentially a modified push-up, in which the person lies facedown, resting on their forearms, palms flat on the floor. The person then lifts herself up onto her elbows and toes, contracting her abs and tilting their pelvis downward to keep their core aligned. Most importantly, DeFalco says, do planking with the guidance of a trainer. “If you don’t, you could fall and physically injure yourself, like bang your chin or worse,” he says.

We talked to some area experts on the right and wrong way to do the most common exercises, including sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, shoulder presses and squats. You’ll learn that the most important aspect of doing any exercise the right way, DeFalco says, is maintaining proper form. “The best way to avoid injury is by taking the time to do it right, even if it means less weight and fewer reps at first.”

SHOULDER PRESS

DO:

• Place feet hip width apart
• Look forward
• Keep shoulders down and squeeze upper back as you raise your arms
• Keep knees soft and weight in heels
• Choose a correct weight for your level

DON’T:

• Stand with feet too close together so you’re not off balance
• Have your arms and the weights go too far forward or behind your head
• Lean forward and have weight on the toes
• Look too far down or have head tilted back

MODIFICATION: To choose the correct weight that both challenges but allows for proper form, start with 5 lbs. If you can do 8-10 reps correctly and rather easily then you’re ready to move to the next level. If you struggle with doing just a few reps correctly, then the weight is too heavy.

SQUAT

DO:

• Keep feet shoulder width apart
• Keep weight in the heels
• Keep buttocks down and parallel with knees as if you were about to sit in a chair
• Place arms in front for balance
• Shoulder should be down and head looking forward

DON’T:

• Have knees too far forward over the ankles or feet
• Look down or have head tucked in towards chest
• Put weight going forward on to toes
• Hunch shoulders up and forward

PULL UP

DO:

• Squeeze the shoulder blades tight and together to help propel you up
• Keep the core tight
• Keep hips facing forward and in line with body
• Keep a neutral spine with hips back

DON’T:

• Hunch forward or down toward your knees. This is not an ab exercise.
• Look down, bend head back or to the side
• Use legs to get you upward
• Hold your breath
• Hunch shoulders toward ears

PUSH UP

DO:

• Keep a neutral spine with buttocks in line with the body
• Keep the core sucked in and tight
• Place chest over the arms and shoulders
• Keep elbows tucked into the sides at 90 degrees
• Keep fingers spread and facing forward

DON’T:

• Drop or sag the hips down towards the ground or resting on the ground
• Hunch the shoulders up to the ears
• Raise buttocks in the air
• Push arms and elbows out to the sides or have shoulders too wide
• Look slightly forward to not strain the neck

MODIFICATION: drop to the knees if regular push ups are too difficult.

SIT UP or CRUNCH

DO:

• Place elbows behind the neck with arms out to side, out of view from the corner of your eye.
• Keep feet placed flat and firmly on the floor, hip width apart
• Keep head and eyes looking upward at ceiling
• Breathe in on the way down and exhale on the way up
• Keep the navel and belly sucked in

DON’T:

• Pull on the neck or bend elbows in towards the head when crunching upward
• Look down or off to side
• Have legs and feet too close to the buttocks or too close together
• Arch the lower back to help get you up

...By Karli Taylor

The myths about women's weight training and female bodybuilding do not ever seem to go away. I'd like stop the weight training and bodybuilding myths from circulating in gyms and instead, share the real facts about female bodybuilding.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #1 -Weight training makes you bulky.

Due to the fact that women do not and cannot naturally produce as much testosterone (one of the main hormones responsible for increasing muscle size) as males do, it is impossible for a woman to gain huge amounts of muscle mass. Unfortunately, the image that may come to your mind is that of professional female bodybuilders. Most of these women, unfortunately, use anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) along with other drugs in order to achieve that high degree of muscularity.

In addition, most also have good genetics coupled with an unbelievable work ethic that enable them to gain muscle quickly when they spend hours in the gym lifting very heavy weights. Believe me when I say that they do not look like that by accident. Women who conduct weight training without the use of steroids get the firm and fit cellulite-free looking body that you see in most fitness/figure shows these days.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #2 - Exercise increases your chest size.

Sorry girls. Women’s breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue. Therefore, it is impossible to increase breast size through weight training. As a matter of fact, if you go below 12 percent body fat (which I don’t recommend doing), your breast size will decrease. Weight training does increase the size of the back, so this misconception probably comes from confusing an increase in back size with an increase in cup size. The only way to increase your breast size is by gaining fat or getting breast implants.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #3 - Weight training makes you stiff and musclebound.

If you perform all exercises through their full range of motion, flexibility will increase. Exercises like flyes, stiff-legged deadlifts, dumbbell presses, and chin-ups stretch the muscle in the bottom range of the movement. Therefore, by performing these exercises correctly, your stretching capabilities will increase.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #4 - If you stop weight training your muscles turn into fat.

This is like saying that gold can turn into brass. Muscle and fat are two totally different types of tissue. What happens many times is that when people decide to go off their weight training programs they start losing muscle due to inactivity (use it or lose it) and they also usually drop the diet as well. Therefore bad eating habits combined with the fact that their metabolism is lower due to inactivity, and lower degrees of muscle mass, give the impression that the subject’s muscle is being turned into fat while in reality what is happening is that muscle is being lost and fat is being accumulated.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #5 - Weight training turns fat into muscle.

More alchemy. This is the equivalent of saying that you can turn any metal into gold; don't we wish! The way a body transformation occurs is by gaining muscle through weight training and losing fat through aerobics and diet simultaneously. Again, muscle and fat are very different types of tissue. We cannot turn one into the other.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #6 - As long as you exercise you can eat anything that you want.

How I wish this were true also! However, this could not be further from the truth. Our individual metabolism determines how many calories we burn at rest and while we exercise. If we eat more calories than we burn on a consistent basis, our bodies will accumulate these extra calories as fat regardless of the amount of exercise that we do. This myth may have been created by people with such high metabolic rates (hardgainers) that no matter how much they eat or what they eat, they rarely meet or exceed the amount of calories that they burn in one day unless they put their mind to doing so. Therefore, their weight either remains stable or goes down.

*Women's Weight Training Myth #7 - Women only need to do cardio and if they decide to lift weights, they should be very light.

First of all, if you only did cardio then muscle and fat would be burned for fuel. One needs to do weights in order to get the muscle building machine going and thus prevent any loss of muscle tissue. Women that only concentrate on cardio will have a very hard time achieving the look that they want. As far as the lifting of very light weights, this is just more nonsense. Muscle responds to resistance and if the resistance is too light, then there will be no reason for the body to change. If you want to transform your body, don't be afraid to pick up the weights and lift hard!

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