Ellen’s Exercise of the Month:  Core & Balance (Picture via Fitness Magazine) This exercise ball move will strengthen your core & improve balance.  To Do This Move: Stand about a foot behind a stability exercise ball with feet together Moving from your hips, bend forward and place your hands on the ball Raise your left [...]

Functional Training Workout for the Week If you are training with me on Monday or Tuesday this week, one-on-one or in one of my groups (Mon 10 am & 5:30 pm and Tues 9:15 am), I have planned a Kettlebell & TRX Workout for you.  We will have 10 exercises per modality.  It is your [...]

To lose weight and keep it off,  Ellen recommends the following: 1.  Weight training 2x/week. 2.  200 minutes of cardiovascular exercise per week. 3.  Eat all the fruits and vegetables you can daily. 4.  Drink 64 ounces of water. 5.  One gram of protein for every 2 lbs of body weight. 6.  Avoid fats like the [...]

The double crunch is a great twist in the regular crunch because it works both your lower and upper abdominal muscles as well as obliques. The movement of rolling the spine upward allows for deep muscle movement and helps give you that flat stomach you always wanted! 1) Lay on your back with your knees [...]

N2SHAPE Riverhouse Yoga was recently road tested by FAA contractor and avid runner, Jill Medhus. Jill has kindly let us copy her feedback on Beth’s Yoga class from her personal training blog! She is currently training for the Marine Corps Marathon run on October 30, 2011, dedicated to the Periclean Scholars Alumni Association. “Recently, I [...]

Stretching does not alleviate muscle soreness or prevent injury.  However, it can make you a more powerful athlete as it produces a large range of motion increasing torque. Check out this link written by Dr. Mirkin, a physican is well known to be the expert on fitness. http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/1394.html

Calories burned shoveling snow based on a 150 lb person – 408 calories/one hour. Muscles involved: Deltoids, abdominals, erectors (lower back), quads, hamstrings, gluts, lats, obliques. Many, many muscles and in my opinion also great for your heart!

Flexibility is a joint’s ability to move through a full range of motion. Flexibility training (stretching) is not about becoming a world class gymnast–it’s about balancing the muscle groups you use or overuse during exercise and other activities, or from bad posture. Read on to learn about the benefits of a good flexibility program. 1. [...]

Walking is one of the safest and most effective sports for fitness, but to become fit, you have to move fairly fast. You should exercise vigorously enough to increase your heart rate at least 20 beats a minute more than when you rest. Walking at a leisurely pace will not raise your heart rate very much. You can increase your speed [...]

I wanted to share with you a little routine that I will do this morning in N2SHAPE’s 9 am Group Training. It is for the lower back and abs and is a routine that you can do at home with just a stability ball. If you don’t have a stability ball, you can skip that [...]