The Scientific Workout: Establishing a Baseline

We promise quantifiable results after every workout because we take a scientific approach to physical training, maintaining a firm baseline by which to measure our client's growth. Having a firm baseline means establishing and adhering to a consistent standard for every aspect of the workout routine, including the temperature of the gym, the exact settings of the machines, the client's exact positioning within the machine, the duration of each exercise, the pause between each exercise, and the exercise order. Some people contend that varying the exercise routine is good, but it is not. Someone who changes any one of these variables from one session to the next has no standard by which to measure their improvement. However, with a firm baseline established, the personal trainer controls those variables, changing only the time spent on each exercise and the weight lifted -- the key variables used to chart progress. Winter Park Athletic Club tailors every aspect of the workout environment -- our training method, the exercise technique, the gym itself -- to preserve the baseline and guarantee quantifiable results.

The Slow Method of Working Out

We call our exercise technique the Slow Method, but ironically, the Slow Method allows the quickest, most time efficient workout possible. A Slow Method workout lasts only twenty minutes, consisting of 5 exercises requiring only one set of 6-8 reps each. Because the body needs 48-72 hours to recover, we discourage clients from working out more than twice a week. Therefore, it takes an investment of only 40 minutes per week to reduce body fat, alleviate back pain, and reverse the effects of aging. We do this by focusing on form and by crafting the exercise so the target muscle group is exhausted by the sixth to eighth rep, eliminating the need for multiple sets.

The goal of Slow Method weight training is the maximum stimulation of targeted muscles, and the part of the exercise that stimulates the muscle most is the turn around. "Turn around" refers to the end of the range of motion where the movement's direction is reversed. Many people "fire" through this part, using momentum or quick bursts of energy to get through the hard part quickly. They feel completing more reps is more important than completing fewer reps properly, but really they cheat themselves out of the full benefit of the exercise. Practicing the Slow method means lifting the weight slowly and steadily through the entire range of motion on a ten-second count and then lowering the weight, equally as slowly and steadily. When the weight returns to the resting position, the Slow Method weightlifter does not unload the weight, rather they let the weights quietly touch before beginning the next rep. When practicing the Slow Method, a weight lifter stimulates the muscle for the entire set, yielding the maximum benefit from the exercise.

The Benefits of the Slow Method

By going slow, a person accomplishes more work with less weight -- 40% less to be exact. That is important because, while muscles can grow stronger, joints cannot. The Slow Method allows clients to get the most out of their muscles without over-straining their joints. Also, because we actively stimulate the muscle during the entire exercise, without time to recover, the muscle fatigues quickly. Reaching muscle fatigue is the primary purpose of weight training. When a muscle fatigues, it has been in effect, damaged, and the body's natural process of repairing the damage induces muscle growth. The quicker one reaches muscle fatigue, the quicker the body begins to heal and grow stronger. Conversely, the longer one takes, the slower the recovery. For that reason, we strive to fatigue the muscle in the optimum time of two minutes, providing for full recovery in 48-72 hours.

Why Strength Training?

A focus on strength training is key to total body health. Strength training allows for body fat reduction, back pain relief, and for reversing the effects of aging.

Reduce Body Fat

Strength training increases metabolism. The more muscle mass one has, the more calories they burn at rest. Each pound of muscle burns 100 calories every day. For most people, adding three pounds of body mass will use as much energy as riding an exercise bike for an hour each day. When combined with a balanced, portion-controlled diet, Slow Method weight training inevitably results in healthy weight loss.

The diet endorsed and practiced by the trainers at Winter Park Athletic Club is 40-30-30 nutrition, also referred to as the Zone Diet. 40-30-30 nutrition is not a diet fad; it is a lifestyle based on a scientific approach to nutrition. It is not a no-carb diet either, but rather a balanced carbohydrate diet. The 40-30-30 refers to the balance of foods that should be included in every meal: 40% protein, 30% carbohydrates, and 30% fat. This ratio provides the protein needed to help muscles recover after a Slow Method workout, the carbohydrates needed to give the body energy, and enough fat to help regulate the sugar levels in the blood stream. Maintaining this balance stabilizes the levels of insulin produced by the body. The overproduction of insulin is the major contributor to unhealthy weight gain and many other health concerns.

Relieve Back Pain

A great deal of chronic back pain arises as a result of back muscles that are too tight or too weak. Tight muscles put pressure on the spine, while loose, weak muscles lack the strength to keep the vertebrae in alignment. Muscles are like guide wires for the bones, and they behave similarly to the wires on a suspension bridge. If some guide wires were too tight and others too loose, the stress would snap the bridge when burdened with a heavy load. The same is true with the body, and the way to put the muscles back in balance is through weight training and stretching.

Every weight training session ends with a period of stretching. Stretching is just as important as weight training for balancing muscles. Often clients who come to Winter Park Athletic Club to alleviate back pain begin with stretching only, working their way into the gym as the muscles increase their range of motion.

Many come to Winter Park Athletic Club as a last-ditch effort to alleviate pain before committing to surgery. Often, because of Slow Method weight training and stretching, surgery was averted. Some clients were so impressed with their results they became trainers themselves.

Reverse Aging

Two common symptoms of aging are muscle loss and loss of flexibility. As people age, their muscle mass decreases -- slowing down the metabolism and inviting weight gain -- and their muscles tighten. Luckily, Slow Method weight training prevents and reverses these symptoms. Studies prove that men and women can safely build muscle tissue into their eighties and beyond. Adding muscle mass revs the metabolism back up because strong muscles burn calories even at rest. Month after month, our clients get quantitatively stronger as they lose fat. Because the Slow Method uses 40% less weight than other workouts, it is safer on the joints, making it ideal for seniors.

The Zone Diet and stretching also play a huge role in helping people look and feel younger. The Zone regulates and balances your intake of sugar, which avoids spikes in insulin production, your body's attempt to balance blood sugar levels. Although necessary, insulin in large doses is toxic and promotes premature aging. Stretching, partnered with weight training, keeps muscles working within their full range of motion, meaning the lack of mobility that comes with old-age can be staved off.

What About Aerobics?

Traditionally, trainers recommend heavy aerobic exercise in addition to weight training. That is not the case at Winter Park Athletic Club. Because there's no rest between sets, clients get a cardiovascular workout as they weight train. As muscle mass increases, the cardiovascular benefits continue, even when the workout is over. Stronger muscles require more blood, even at rest, so the heart grows stronger to keep pace with the body. For every pound of muscle you build, your body will burn an extra 100 calories a day. That is better than spending several hours a week on a treadmill.

Some people enjoy extra cardiovascular activities -- cycling, swimming, playing tennis -- and we don't discourage it. We do, however, regard it as a recreational activity. We caution clients against over-exerting themselves with aerobic activities. If you pushes themselves too hard between workout sessions, they can either interrupt their recovery from the prior weight training session or pre-exhaust a muscle group, forcing it into a state of recovery during the next training session. Either way, a person will perform worse than if they had not engaged in extra activity at all.

The Importance of a Personal Trainer

Working out is not a solitary pursuit. No one works out alone in our gym. Even our trainers have trainers, becausae a trainer is the critical element in maintaining an ideal workout environment. A trainer enforces the baseline, controlling all the variables of the workout, ensuring quantifiable results. Furthermore, a trainer insures safety, maximizes efficiency, sets goals, provides encouragement and accountability, and applies his or her expertise to solving clients' specific challenges.

Maintaining the Baseline

A personal trainer regulates all the variables that could negatively effect a club member's workout. The trainers customize the machines for each client, adding pads and pillows to ensure perfect alignment and a comfortable fit. If a client begins to overheat, the trainer points a fan on him or her to keep the muscles cool. A trainer monitors form and regulates rhythm. While concentrating on the exercise, you cannot keep track of all the other factors that might influence your workout. A personal trainer can.

Tracking Results

If you pay proper attention to maintaining perfect form while coping with the discomfort of the exercise, you will find counting reps and tracking the total time spent on each exercise nearly impossible. This is where a trainer is essential. Trainers precisely record results so improvement can be quantitatively tracked. Moreover, people who take the time to record their own results increase the rest between exercises, reducing the efficiency of the workout.

Safety

Personal trainers ensure safety. At the end of a set of reps, a your mind can be so overcome with the physical discomfort of the exercise that you are prone to making the following mistakes: straining neck muscles, holding your breath, grunting, contorting, and slamming weights. These are all very dangerous. Straining neck muscles can result in uncomfortable neck injuries. Holding your breath, although a natural response to lifting heavy weight, is perhaps the most dangerous workout mistake because when the body stops receiving oxygen, blood pressure spikes, causing a blood build-up in the brain which can result in painful exercise-induced headaches. Grunting causes the same oxygen deficiency and can be nearly as dangerous. Exercise puts the body under considerable strain, and quick movements invite injury. A personal trainer ensures you maintain proper form and conduct your exercises slowly and safely, reducing the risk of injury to a level impossible to achieve alone.

Encouragement and Accountability

Everyone needs motivation to get to the gym. Even trainers sometimes dread working out. That is why our trainers exercise with other trainers: they need someone to be accountable to. By making an appointment, you make a commitment with your trainers, and you are less likely to break that commitment than a private promise made to yourself. Once you start exercising, trainers push you to do your best, letting you know when you are close to achieving a goal, and celebrating with you when you show improvement. You always get a more thorough workout when you work with a trainer.

Experience and Expertise

Everyone has a different body and different reasons for working out. Our personal trainers have the experience and the training to adapt to your specific needs. Some people are prone to exercise-induced headaches, others feel nauseated when working with their arms above their heads, and our trainers adjust the workout to accommodate. Clients with injuries require special attention, and a personal trainer can not only work around the injury, but often help the injury recover. Furthermore, our trainers work in a non-competitive environment, cooperating frequently and pooling their collective knowledge and experience, guaranteeing we have the flexibility to meet any client's unique needs.

The Ideal Workout Environment

At Winter Park Athletic Club, you'll never wait for machines. The machines themselves are more complicated and efficient, making them better than the machines as big health clubs. We have no loud, distracting music, and because everybody works quietly with a trainer, there are no distracting people. We regulate the temperature so the environment is very cool, keeping our clients from sweating.

No Sweating

Some people feel they don't get a good workout if they do not sweat. They are wrong. Sweating indicates muscles are overheating, and when muscles overheat, the blood cannot deliver as much oxygen, stunting muscle growth. Furthermore, an overheating muscle fatigues quicker. Although the goal of the Slow Method is to fatigue the muscle quickly, it is important to do it under optimum circumstances. Overheating induces premature fatigue and diminishes the effectiveness of the workout. What our clients like best about a sweat-free workout is that it does not leave them wet, sticky, or stinky -- so they can work out between other activities without necessarily needing a shower.

No Distractions

Because the Slow Method is so intense, distractions can cause a dramatic loss in efficiency or worse, lead to injury. While big gyms create a party atmosphere by pumping in loud music, the Winter Park Athletic Club gym is quiet. This allows our clients to concentrate on form and prohibits the tempo of the music from affecting the careful pace of the workout. Because no one enters the gym without a trainer, we can limit the number of people in the gym to only a few, which keeps clients from diverting their attention to distracting behavior or to distracting bodies. And it means our clients do not have to worry about people being distracted by them.

No Waiting

Another advantage to limiting the number of people allowed in the gym is that you will never wait to use a machine. Not only is waiting an obnoxious hassle, it negatively effects the workout. While waiting, heart rates fall and muscles begin to recover. Without being able to regulate the time between each exercise, you compromise the baseline, leaving no way to accurately chart progress.

The Machines

Winter Park Athletic Club uses equipment that is far superior to big gyms. Their standardized machines are designed to fit the common person — so that they can be easily operated by someone with little training. The equipment we use have more settings, allowing us to customize the fit to any person. Our machines also have cams to minimize negative strength curves, and guides and grids that allow trainers to regulate consistent positioning on the machine. Better equipment means results.

The Ideal Business Environment

Winter Park Athletic Club does not just provide an ideal environment for working out, it fosters an ideal environment for conducting business. For our trainers, this means that we have created a non-competitive atmosphere. Our trainers do not compete with one another for your business; rather, we pair new clients with the trainer most skilled to fit their needs. As a result, you get a better workout, and the trainers feel comfortable pooling their knowledge so each client has the benefit of the combined experience of our entire staff.

We will never ask you to sign a contract. You make no long-term commitments when you begin training at Winter Park Athletic Club. Instead, our trainers work hard to you results after every workout, and it is results that keep our customers coming back every week.

It is results that define every aspect of our business. Our business model, our exercise style, our family of trainers, the temperature of our gym, and the type of machines we purchase are all geared to establishing a structured, consistent workout environment. A consistent and structured workout environment is the ideal workout environment. This is where we can establish a firm exercise baseline that enables us to show our clients quantitative results after every workout.