Trainer Tip Tuesday...building a strong set of shoulders is important but many of us also want them to be sculpted and have that visible separation between the "cap" and the arm. How do we achieve this besides the obvious, eating at a caloric deficit to burn overall fat to reveal the muscles underneath?...p.s. this is always answer #1 when it comes to visible muscle definition. No matter how strong they are, no matter how big they are, if you are carrying excess body fat in y

Trainer Tip Tuesday...transformation and the importance of progress pictures. Every individual with a want for change experience it in their own personal way. Whether your goal is to lose fat or gain muscle/strength, there are no two journeys that are identical. I was reminded of my own physical transformation after I shared my story about BDD and my current battle with self-doubt. One of my dear friends sent me these photos side by side of me 3 years apart. Intellectually I

Trainer Tip Tuesday and I am talking to you from a very personal place today. A little back story...in 2015 I started feeling pain in my back that I had never felt before. In fact, I was always kind of immune to pain or at least, I was in denial of it. I never liked to admit I was hurting for fear of being seen as "weak". But 2 years ago it was beginning to affect my work and my athletic hobbies, negatively. So I sought medical attention. It was diagnosed with bulging discs a

It's trainer tip Tuesday and I want to talk about this perception that every fitness professional and social media icon is perfect...and that for some reason we (regular, everyday women) need to live up to that unrealistic standard. I will put it bluntly and I know it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway...NO ONE IS PERFECT. Everyone has bad days, bad angles, flaws, and everyone has rolls when they sit (unless they are posing). We have to stop it with the unrealistic, photoshopp

It's trainer tip Tuesday....and I'm talking HIIT vs. steady state cardio. I'm always emphasizing to people that unless endurance is your goal, steady state cardio is not an absolutely necessary component to a balanced fitness regimen. You can get the fat burning and cardio-respiratory effect through your strength training workouts by incorporating supersets. But you can also perform strength work as HIIT to maximize your time and your effort for MAXIMUM results. HIIT, or h

It's Trainer Tip Tuesday and I'm going for some real talk...there is no such thing as "TONING". Please stop using that word! The number of women I have telling me they “don’t want to build muscle and just want to be toned" is crazy. I have news for you…and it's gonna be hard to hear...toning is a misnomer, it doesn't mean what you think it means. Muscles grow or muscles get smaller. You gain fat, or you lose fat. It is simple. “Toning” implies losing enough fat so you ca

It's humbling to be faced with a challenge that pushes the limits. It is not easy to admit that we aren't as capable as we believe. But sometimes we have to do that. Finding out what needs to be improved upon in order to progress is such a positive thing. No one is perfect. No one is capable of everything all the time. I was humbled this past weekend at the Palmerton Spartan Race. I was shown how much work I have to do to be as strong and fast and competitive as I want to be.

Free yourself from the confines you have built around yourself...the walls that don't allow progress, that stall success and keep us from being truly happy with ourselves. Allow yourself a treat or a few, on a holiday or in celebration, or just because...but balance that with exercise, stretching and a lot of water! You don't have to do a formal workout, but DO SOMETHING ACTIVE! Why give yourself a treat and then feel bad about it? Guilt is such a waste of energy. Have the tr

Have you ever had someone, a stranger or otherwise, straight up tell you "you're lifting too much weight" or say "women shouldn't lift heavy" or "you don't want to get too big"? I have and it's frustrating...no it downright makes me want to scream in anger. I have had all of these things said to me. I mean strangers on the street, in a Starbucks, and even AT the gym have said those words to me. My reaction, after the initial shock is, "What I do with MY body has nothing to do

Trainer Tip Tuesday and today I am talking about posture. I have shown in the largest photo proper posture: feet parallel, the knees not locked with a soft release in the knees, the hips aligned over the knees with the pelvic bones pointing forward like headlights, the core engaged (but not flexed). The shoulders over the hips with the scapula pulled softly back and down (like birds wings at rest) and the ear lobes over the shoulders. The other photos demonstrate the most