Also, I love the fact I get to reach many more women than ever before as well! Being only a one-on-one trainer, I could only see on a good day 6 or so clients in a day. Now, I have nearly 100 women a day that are in my presence hungy for a challenging yet fun workout that is results-oriented. We never try to repeat the same exact workouts twice and unlike random fitness classes in Memphis, I build the program using periodization. That’s a fancy word for progressing workouts in a way that helps women reach their goals much faster than doing the same routine over and over again. DVD programs come to mind…..

Another beautiful thing about Memphis Adventure Boot Camp is it takes the nonsense out of exercise. We don’t really need those machines and sometimes clumsy contractions that plague traditional gyms and fitness facilities. We workout using basic equipment: dumbbells, resistance bands, medicine balls, a few other odds and ends, and most importantly, out own bodies. You see, the ability to change your body to become stronger and more fit is not found within a machine, it is found within our own bodies. There are so many ways to manipulate body movement that effectively works the legs, arms, core..and all body parts. Our bodies can be viewed as levers that can be manipulated to achieve fantastic results!

Isn’t it better to workout outside whenever possible? That is so awesome about Memphis Adventure Boot Camp because we are outside! No commercial facility can compare to this because we go outside and use our natural environment while exercising. Running is a good cardiovascular exercise, but why not take the entire workout outside if you can!

Being in group of like-minded individuals is amazing as well. The power of a group that encourages you to show up is beyond my belief. There are women of all shapes, sizes, and levels of fitness too! Women are encouraging one another on Facebook with simple “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at bootcamp” comments, I am humbled. If a person is not in camp, it is common for me to hear another camper ask about them. When they return, they are welcomed in just like family. Memphis Adventure Boot Camp really is like a family for fitness goals and they are there to help you too!

The real reason why I decided to become a fitness trainer, not a doctor, physical therapist, and any other profession is the people I get to touch each and every day. Just this past week, a wonderful lady named Judy Williams in the evening class announced to us all that her blood sugars were in the normal range for the first time in 10 years! Could you imagine the excitement she felt!? It was intoxicating! The best part was, everyone in class applauded her for her accomplishment. How cool is that!?

Here are a few tidbits I have received about the class:

I like Memphis Adventure Boot Camp so much so far. I quit my (personal) trainer yesterday I was seeing 2 days a week. I feel like I am getting more of a overall work out rather than simply doing hardcore weight training. -Pryor Lott

I’m loving the class, even though it is killing me. -Terry Drumwright

I am amazed at how hands on you are with your campers. That is what makes this program different. -Suzanne White

I am really starting to see the benefits of the workout. I am excited to see what happens in the coming weeks!- Stephanie Aldrich

We definitely love the boot camp! -Cara Maynes

Memphis Adventure Boot Camp is just about the best workout in Memphis. I just love the class and the ladies! It is the best group I have ever worked out with. -Trish Sabater

There’s many others of course. You can view them and see video testimonials here: http://memphisadventurebootcamp.com/site/testimonials.php
I invite you to come see what we are all about women of Memphis! Try us for $2 for one week to let us prove that we are here to get you results! http://memphisadventurebootcamp.com/site/calendar.php?location=Memphis&id=475
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at dexter@dextertenisonfitness.com or call me at (901) 214-5573.

Be Better, Have Some Adventure!
Dexter Tenison, MSS

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/mar/25/first-step-to-fitness-a-doozy-but-worth-it-for/

Be Better!

Dexter

Guest posting by Harmony Wilson, intern for Memphis Adventure Boot Camp

Some people are not aware about the advantages and disadvantages of using dumbbells or weight machines.  It is believed that benefits for both are similar; in that case most stick to one, which may lessen the benefits that both can provide. It is best to try to implement both technologies whenever possible in order to reap the benefits of both. The following are charts that state the advantages and disadvantages of both.

It is fairly safe to say that dumbbell training is superior if there is only one option, but machine training can allow maximal lifting in a safer environment.

Dumbbells

Weight Machines

Some people believe that losing weight is simply a matter of willpower. While willpower does play a role in the strive for weight loss, I suggest that if you are wanting to lose weight, create an environment for yourself that helps you stay on track.

1. Find a support system. Studies show that people who have a strong support system tend to stick to their programs longer and with overall better success. Memphis ABC is a very strong support system. Also, family and friends can be good support. I sometimes see people post things on Facebook about their weight loss or the number days they stopped smoking and they get flooded with positive reinforcement. By the way, befriend me on Facebook if you haven’t already!

2. Do a pantry raid. Be honest with yourself. Do you need to clean out the bad foods in the pantry and fridge? If those cookies are there in the front, looking at you each and every time you open the door, sooner than later, you are going to accidentally find their way into your mouth! Get real! Think about the trigger foods in and around your house and throw them away!

3. Change your route. Do you constantly crave an ice cream or something like this every time you pass a certain place when in your car? I realized that every time I see Pei Wei, I think, “UMMM I love their cookies!” This is no good! So, I don’t drive by Pei Wei anymore. I found I new route to get to where I needed to go! I suggest you do the same.

4. Have your significant other or best friend on board. This one is tricky, but if you approach it with tact, you could have a great ally instead of a person who works against you. Rarely do couples do exercise and eating better at the same exact times. So, one person is trying to say no to sweets while the other is chowing down on them while both are watching TV. The success of weight loss isn’t going to last long. Be upfront. Let them know you are really trying hard to do well and you really need their support. Ask them for help. The asking part will go a really long way!

Do you have a few others you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them!

Be Better!

Dexter

Stacey Greenberg, a freelance writer here in Memphis, decided to join Memphis Adventure Boot Camp. She lived to tell about it and has written an article in the January ‘10 issue of Memphis Parent Magazine. Check out her experiences here: http://www.memphisparent.com/2010/01/workout-warriors/. Also, check out her amazing, award-winning blogs at http://diningwithmonkeys.com/.

Memphis Adventure Boot Camp is the premier fitness offering for the women of Memphis. Get the complete package of fitness while doing it with other likeminded women. Memphis ABC meets for 4-weeks at a time all year long. You have nothing to lose but fat and you have your new body to gain!

First, let’s look at the issue from a perspective of natural history. (Dexter: Let’s take evolution with a grain of salt. There’s always evolution occurring in the world and we don’t have to view it as a religion vs. science thing.) Our evolution into the human species from our ape ancestors is thought to have occurred some 2.8 million years ago. Spanning the duration of this vast period, it should strike you as interesting that the first reported heart attack in the U.S. occurred in 1920, only 12 years after the grain industry began hydrogenating plant and grain oils. Now, I personally find it interesting that there is such hype over cardiovascular exercise as necessary prevention for heart attack or even heart disease, when such diseases were relatively nonexistent less than 100 years ago. That’s but a flash in the pan of human evolution.

Our next logical question should be, did our ancestors regularly participate in cardiovascular exercise? Not likely. First of all, it would not be energy efficient to run around gathering berries, firewood and nuts in your target zone. Nor would it have been wise to run through the bush trying to get a workout while hunting, since any animal would hear you coming from hundreds of yards away and be long gone by the time you got there. If there was a cardiovascular stressor in our native environment, it was most likely when we had to send a messenger to a neighboring village or during times of battle, when you were either running or fighting for your life.

When you look at most sports played today, recreational activities, and work related tasks, the great majority of them place anaerobic demands on the body. Now, surely some of you grew up on a farm or have done hard labor before. When performing any intense work, you begin breathing faster and faster…in fact, you will go aerobic within a few minutes if the work efforts demand so much of your anaerobic energy systems that the demand for energy can’t be replaced by intermediate and anaerobic energy systems (fast glycolytic and aerobic).

I have many memories of bucking hay; the bails weigh 75-120 lb., yet you’ve got to keep up with the tractor as it moves through the field (no, my dad didn’t let me stop for a minute every 12 bails).

When you have thousands of bails to haul in, and will be in the field for hours at a time, you will soon find that your anaerobic stimulus (the bails) produces a demand that the purely anaerobic phosphagen system can’t maintain on it’s own (it only lasts about 8-12 seconds), resulting in ATP production by anaerobic glycolysis and aerobic metabolism respectively. By this very mechanism, our anaerobic capacity is recharged during sports such as tennis, soccer, hockey, basketball, etc., that require explosive movement for prolonged periods of time.

I use hay-bucking because it is a real-world example of how we have maintained aerobic fitness from the beginning of human evolution. If you can follow my logic here, you should be wondering why we are so encouraged to offer aerobic exercise to our patients and clients by most every medical, physical therapy, chiropractic and personal training education program that exists. It’s simple actually. It’s the very same reason we are being told that we must eat a high carbohydrate diet for energy…why doctors tell people they must take this or that drug…BIG INDUSTRY INFLUENCE.

Quite simply, there’s not much money in the manufacture and sales of dumbbells, weight plates and Olympic bars, but there are huge amounts of money to be made if you can convince the masses that aerobic exercise is necessary for disease prevention. After all, have you priced a treadmill, step mill, spin bike, rowing machine, elliptical machine or any such equipment lately? They cost anywhere from several hundred, to several thousand dollars per unit! They often have hundreds of moving parts, which wear out, break and need to be replaced. How many Olympic bars or dumbbells have you replaced lately? It is not at all unusual for a gym or rehab clinic to spend $75,000-$100,000 on cardio equipment alone, and, they will need to be replaced every few years; the same facilities often don’t spend more than $15,000-$20,000 on free weight training equipment and it can last the life of the gym. Yes, I know they spend large sums of money on fixed axis resistance training machines, but that is but another sign of industry influence and professional passivity!

When you get several large equipment manufacturers with multi-million dollar investments in the production of aerobic exercise equipment, you can rest assured there will be a comparatively large commitment to creating an aerobic exercise consciousness. The proof is all around you, in your exercise and bodybuilding magazines, trade journals, on TV infomercials, in your training manuals from most educational institutions. Who do you think sponsors the educational institutions and pays for the supportive research?

So Who Needs It?

The issue is not one of prevention of cardiovascular disease by aerobic exercise, it is an issue of getting the right kind of exercise to benefit both your physiology and meet the demands of your work and sports environment. For example, aerobic conditioning is not general. If it were, any world-class marathon runner could jump on a bike and win the Tour De France, or even the Hawaii Iron Man! Strength training is also not general; there is a very finite amount of carryover from one lift or movement pattern to the other. Otherwise, the best squatter would be the best dead lifter too.

Everyone needs to build fitness, yet for fitness (aerobic or anaerobic) to last, it must be built upon foundation health principles. Proof of this premise can be seen when world-class marathon runners (Jim Fix) and champion bodybuilders (Lou Barry, a former Mr. Australia) die of a heart attack at an early age. When we eat correctly for our metabolic type, eat high quality organic foods, eat regularly to maintain our blood sugar levels in an optimal range, get to bed at a reasonable hour and learn to manage our stressors, the addition of an exercise program of any type becomes truly therapeutic and offers disease prevention. Aerobic fitness atop the standard American diet (SAD!) of Carbohydrates, Refined sugar, Additives and Preservatives (CRAP!) will not offer resistance to disease. In fact, it may well bring it on! Why? That’s simple…because exercise is a stress and if you add more stress to an already stressed system, it will crash.

You may think this is simple, logical, straightforward stuff, but it isn’t, because again, there is BIG money involved here. I will site one of hundreds, even thousands of examples; Scripps Hospital here in San Diego recently partnered with McDonalds. So now McDonalds feeds all those sick and dying people in the hospital their SAD CRAP, while they pedal away on bikes, pump pedals on stair masters, and about every other expensive aerobic machine you can imagine!

Functional Aerobic Fitness

While you are in the process of vitalizing your body from the inside out, I recommend that you choose movement patterns that offer injury prevention and improved performance in the environment where you work and play.

While exercising, all you need do is wear a heart rate monitor and determine your target heart rate zone. If you want a greater aerobic stimulus than your work or training environment is currently providing, simply shorten your rest periods. In short order, you will progressively get a greater aerobic response to the stress impinging upon the system via the activity you have chosen. If your heart rate begins to rise too high, simply take a little longer rest period or decrease the number of repetitions you are performing or the amount of time under load.

If you follow this simple guideline, you will learn to “eat, move and be healthy!” and, you will have the greatest form of prevention of heart disease you could ever have, HEALTH!

http://www.chekinstitute.com/articles.cfm

Many foods come naturally equipped with immune boosting and antiviral qualities and the good news is these foods can be easily incorporated into your daily menus. Here are some suggestions:

1. Choose foods rich in Vitamin C: Since we cannot store vitamin C in our bodies, we need to consume it regularly. We should be eating 5-6 servings daily of fruits and vegetables which are rich in this vital vitamin. Such foods include bell peppers (especially red), cabbage, broccoli, leafy greens, kiwi fruit, citrus fruits, and berries. Consider making a smoothie for breakfast using banana, orange juice and organic frozen blueberries. Or just add thawed blueberries to your granola or yogurt. Peel and slice a kiwi or an orange to have with your toast. Other ideas include sautéing spinach with garlic in olive oil for dinner or make festive fajitas with chicken and brightly colored peppers. These are all easy ways to increase your consumption of vitamin C, a natural immune system enhancer.

2. Eat more garlic and onions: Garlic is a highly esteemed vegetable to many cultures around the world and for good reason. In fact, its use as a vegetable and as a medicine dates back to 5000 BC. Garlic certainly adds wonderful flavor to food, but it also has a positive effect on the immune system. It is rich in phytonutrients which are known for their antibiotic and antiviral properties. Garlic’s medicinal benefit is most potent when used raw so consider adding it to salad dressings for this use. However, garlic still offers benefits when cooked so use it generously in stir frys, soups, and casseroles. Top crusty bread with roasted garlic instead of butter. Similarly, onions enjoy a long history with their cultivation dating back to 3200 BC. Clearly onions are the most universal seasoning used today. The flavonoids in onions actually work with vitamin C to help kill harmful bacteria. It’s hard to find a savory recipe that doesn’t use onions but consider making a soothing and delicious pot of onion soup or include onions with slow roasted winter vegetables.

3. Eat brightly colored fruits and vegetables: While nutritionists tout the health benefits of beta carotene, its conversion into vitamin A in the body has immune boosting qualities as well. Fortunately foods rich in the nutrients are readily available in the fall and winter months including winter squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin. Additional sources include cooked spinach, apricots, and mangoes. Instead of a russet potato, substitute a delicious sweet potato. Just that simple change increases antioxidants significantly and also provides more vitamin C and trace minerals. Use that can of pumpkin puree in your pantry to make pumpkin bread. Make a pot of carrot ginger soup. Fish are also good sources of vitamin A including halibut, wild caught salmon, and cod. Evidence suggests the nutrients in these foods can prevent or lessen the severity of certain infections.

4. Drink tea: And in particular, drink green tea. Studies have shown that drinking green tea can enhance the immune system because it has a high concentration of polyphenols, known for their antioxidant properties. Green tea is also less processed than black tea. And finally, enjoying a hot cup of tea forces you to slow down and relax and this is always a benefit to your immune system.

While each of us usually get a cold or two each year, it’s important to know that our diets and habits do impact our health. Get plenty of sleep, stay away from highly processed foods and include some of the healthy foods included above and you are on your way to a healthy flu season and healthy year ahead.

Be Better!

I don’t have time. My Memphis Adventure Boot Camp for Women meets at 5:30 a.m. I consider it the “no excuse” time.

Working with Dexter is too expensive. Answer #1: Maybe it is, but my new assistant Anna Langston has learned the same synergistic approach of the Power of 5 to be an extremely effective and lower cost option for you. Schedule the sessions in a way you can afford. Answer #2: My Memphis Adventure Boot Camp for Women is only $14.95 a session so you can’t tell me that I am too expensive to work with.

I don’t exercise during the times you don’t meet with me. OK, Memphis Adventure Boot Camp for Women meets 5X a week so you don’t have to think about any of that anymore!

The eating part is where I have the most trouble. We all do! I am in the final stages of working with a person who will offer a 5-meal or 3-meal option that is supportive of the Power of 5 fitness approach. Definitely be looking for that in the very near future.

I don’t have enough time to eat five to six meals a day. See above. Also, I have found a super-excellent option from Dr. Fred Hatfield. His meal replacement squares taste SOOO EXCELLENT! I have an account set up through the website, so you will need to use my trainer code when checking out. It’s 114330.  Here is the direct link to these awesome bars. http://drsquat.com/propower/supplements/meal-replacement-squares He has other products I will review in the upcoming months.

Exercise isn’t fun. Memphis Adventure Boot Camp, myself, and Anna all specialize in making sure you get what you need in exercise. You never know what you are going to get in a one-on-one session or Memphis Adventure Boot Camp!

I don’t have support at home. OK, then look elsewhere. There’s nothing like having 49 other women and me   giving you the support you need to get through the week! On a one-on-one level, we get to the root of your issues and work to find the best way to help you to be inspired and encouraged throughout the week!

I think that almost wraps all the excuses up. You now know I am here to help Memphis become fit, healthy, and reverse disease.

Be Better,

Dexter

Structured People

My fiancé is very structured. She needs to know every aspect of exercise and plan accordingly. She attempts to plan for the exact time of day to exercise. She needs to know that her environment is stable with a constant cool temperature. She needs to know what equipment is available to her and she needs to know the exact exercise routine she will be doing. She finally needs to know where she is heading in her progressive routine. Anything other than this is chaos and there doesn’t seem to be a point to it. She gets anxious and doesn’t want to do it if it doesn’t follow her needs.

Does this sound like you too? Cool. Don’t think there is anything wrong with you. Embrace what you need in order to exercise. Plan out your routine and training situation. Make sure you have it the way you like it. Also, put your routine time into your calendar and STICK TO IT! Not sticking to it will create a sense of hopelessness and if you find yourself doing that, then tweek areas until you find the right mix. Once you find the correct ingredients, follow a progressive exercise plan that challenges you and your body to respond in a positive way. You still don’t feel in control? Find a truly qualified personal trainer or group class that follows the rules of proper body transformation to help you along the way.

Unstructured People

If you are an unstructured person, you need to have variety in your workouts. You need to not be confined to a certain way of doing things and you are constantly looking for ways to make your exercise routines more fun and exciting. OK, this is good! However, let’s give you a few guidelines in order to keep your free-spirit mind from going over the deep-end (literally) while still getting that creative need out of you.

A good exercise program allows you to vary your workouts. You like this of course! Just remember to make your exercise progressive. Go for a hike. Do your entire resistance training outside with nothing but your bodyweight and the environment as equipment. Try a new sport. Explore new ways to do the same old exercises. Just keep it safe and progressive and that’s all you need! Progression refers to intensity of exercise, focus of exercise, and duration of exercise. Progress in duration of exercise until you need to increase its intensity. Also, if you did a lot of lower body exercise one day, make sure you incorporate some upper body movements the next time. For example, if you played basketball for cardio, which is great of the lower body, try canoeing later in the week for some upper bodywork too. Not sure how to do this and need new and better ideas? Find a truly qualified personal trainer or group class that follows the rules of proper body transformation to help you along the way!

Of course you could be a hybrid of the two people, which is sort of like me. I need unstructured structure if that makes sense. Pick and choose the elements for your particular needs. Have fun! Be safe! Get results!

Be Better!

Dexter