Gorgeous November Day for a run in Lakes Park, Fort Myers. Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

Social media has had a huge impact on the fitness industry - from the instantaneous interaction we have with people all over the world - to content being accessible to anyone anytime.  

We live in a world where we have never been more connected and influenced by social media.

We have so much information readily available and it has opened incredible opportunities for self-promotion, support networks, and research.

However, we have also opened the door for exploitation.

People have become ‘Insta famous’ with hundreds of thousands of people following their photos and content and because of their aesthetics, claim to be fitness experts.

These people now have a platform to exploit the opinions of the public and their desires around fitness.

As a community, we must aim to use social media as a positive influence by promoting healthy and ethical fitness practices that support...

A brisk walk in the park on a beautiful Florida fall day is an awesome aerobic exercise! Photo courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

‘Aerobic’ exercise refers to exercise that requires an uptake and consumption of substantially more oxygen than at rest.

It involves repeated movements of the large muscles of your body for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Examples of aerobic exercise include:

• Brisk walking,
• Jogging,
• Swimming
• Cycling
• Dancing
• Ice Skating
• Kayaking
• Roller-blading

Because you need more oxygen to do aerobic exercise, you breathe more rapidly and more deeply to get extra oxygen into your lungs.

Your heart also beats faster to deliver more oxygen-carrying blood from your lungs to your muscles.

How fast your heart beats and how rapidly you breathe will depend on how intense the exercise is.

For general health and fitness benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancers and improving your stamina, it is recommended that you do some form of moderate...

Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida - Tues, Sept 28, 2021.  Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

I’m sure you’ve heard the adage:

“life is a journey, not a destination”.

The same is true for fitness as well.

Often we see enthusiasts work towards a fitness or health goal, achieve it and then slowly slide back to where they started. Sound familiar?

This cycle is easy to break If you shift your thinking and training to cultivate long-term habits, rather than just ‘short-term fix goals’.  

First, understand there are several reasons why maintaining a change in behavior is often more difficult than making the initial change itself.

These include:

• Starting with a ‘race to the finish’ mentality (common in fitness challenges), where there is a ‘start’ and ‘end’. This approach doesn’t work long-term because you fail to enjoy the journey and get burnt out.
• Failing to plan to maintain your goals once you've...

Getting fit outside, more and more parks, and even hotels offer outside fitness (this photo taken at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida).  Photo Courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran, there is nothing more satisfying than reaching your training goals.

However, to do this, you must be training efficiently.

If you’re part of the population who are working out non-stop yet seeing little results, this article is for you.

First, begin every training session or workout with mobility and activation drills.

Warm-ups are typically done haphazardly, if at all. 

More often, we see people wander into the gym, walk immediately up to a squat rack and start pumping out sets.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not only drastically increasing the risk of serious injury but are also not exercising to your fullest potential.

Conversely, those who do warm-up, may be doing some cardio and a few stretches, but current...

There is no denying that we live in the ‘technological era’.

Consumers are constantly on the go, looking for new and improved ways to maximize time, energy and enjoyment. Whether this means streaming music, capturing that ‘award-winning’ picture, engaging in the latest Twitter debate, or texting friends/family, it’s all done on technological devices of one sort or another. In fact, most of you reading this article will own at least one technological device.

Take a second to add up the number of hours each day that you spend on your device. Is it one, two, five, or even ten?

That calculation isn’t of any real benefit for this discussion, but your posture is, and the awkward positions we find ourselves in while using these devices will not help.
I would like to introduce to you the term the ‘iHunch’.

iHunch is a term used to describe the common spinal problem at the level of the cervicothoracic junction (CT junction)...

A beautiful autumn day in Fort Myers, Florida, perfect walking or running weather!  Join the Geared Up family on our next run, find out how here.

For a lot of us, pain in the body will come and go, like a headache.

You may have pain for an hour or maybe even a day, but often it will simply go away and you’ll forget about it.

There are many factors and mechanisms that cause pain in the body, and sometimes you may feel it’s not bad enough to do anything about.

The best tip I can give you is you should do something about our pain before it becomes problematic.

But how do you know when?

Delayed onset muscle soreness (D.O.M.S)

As you’ve probably experienced, after training, you can develop delayed onset muscle soreness (D.O.M.S).

This pain and stiffness can be felt in the muscle for between 24 to 72 hours, days after strenuous or unaccustomed exercise.

It is caused by damage to the muscle during the eccentric (lengthening) part of the contraction and the soreness...

In the Southwest Florida area?  Enjoy a workout in Lakes Park, Fort Myers - miles of trails, and there are workout areas scattered throughout the park!

It may seem impossible to fathom the idea of snow skiing while the sun is shining and you’re still going to the beach but fall is just around the corner and anyone planning holiday ski trips has less than 10 weeks to get sport specific fit.

Let’s be honest, while snow sports can be a lot of fun, many people arrive at the ski lift unprepared, unfit and leave the mountain stiff, sore and sometimes injured.

First, let’s acknowledge that a lot of people have desk-bound jobs that don’t exactly “prep” them for the intensity of skiing or snowboarding, and while they may do exercise, it’s usually not specific enough to allow them to cope with the specific positions and forces that occur during snow sports.

For example, with skiing, you spend most of your day bent like a zigzag.

You’re in a...

Josie, Bill and I filming, as I coach them, for our Video Training Library (learn more about our powerful training library here).

As a coach, I am routinely asked what an athlete can do to improve their performance.

This is usually preceded by a tale of woe about some lack luster race result.

Fortunately for me, a quick skim of their recent racing splits and training logs makes it fairly easy to identify where their problems originate.

If you’re looking for peak performances this season, regardless your sport, you need to be mindful in your efforts and train smarter, not harder.

Error #1, Going out too fast.

This is easy to identify by simply looking at your splits.

Whether you are swimming, biking, running, walking, playing a tennis match or a round of golf, if you have not managed your energy and the second half of your sport is slower than the first half, you went out too fast.

To avoid this, commit to practicing goal specific pacing for at least half your race distance...

The running path in Lakes Park, Fort Myers, Florida - so many of our Geared Up! athletes run this beautiful path to stay in shape.  Join us if you'd like!

The holidays are typically extremely busy and extremely indulgent.

All the holiday dinners coupled with holiday hospitality events and in short, health and fitness are not generally found at the top of Santa's list.

With December’s month long celebrations, often in excess, many people find themselves committing to firm New Year’s resolutions to get fit and lose weight.

It’s not surprising that many people struggle to maintain a healthy focus in December.

To enjoy the holiday celebrations and maintain a healthy focus, follow a few festive fitness guides and you’ll be ahead come January 1.

It is paramount you maintain your fitness program. One of the hardest things to do when your time is in short supply is to maintain an exercise routine.

If you usually exercise a few times a week, the additional...

Harness training involving weighted sleds, parachutes and resisted and assisted partner sprinting is becoming increasingly prevalent in gym and outdoor training environments.

However, before it filtered across to mainstream fitness, it had its origins in sport-specific training.

Track and field has been utilizing such training methods for nearly the past 3 decades, and it has become more prevalent in elite team sports such a football, soccer and hockey.

The application of harness training really excels in the development of running speed, stride efficiency and acceleration.

Pretty much any type of resisted sprinting activity, whether it’s with a sled, a chute or partner training, works on force development, because to overcome the given resistance, you must generate more force while you’re in contact with the ground.

In addition, by slowing movement down using resistance, participants can feel the correct body position they are striving to achieve and improve their...