Rip The Core…

It’s 2012, you’ve made your resolution and got that new gym membership. Now what? A survey of 2,600 fitness professionals conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine ranked the top 20 fitness trends for the coming year.
(more…)

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — To area fitness centers, the New Year is a chance for a New You.
(more…)

LONDON , December 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Sweatband.com , the UK sports & fitness equipment superstore has announced the addition of the Sole Fitness brand to its range. Sole Fitness has been established …
(more…)

NEW YORK , Dec. 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – Working out just became a whole lot easier with PumpOne’s 2012 personal training experience. Launching across all major platforms for both consumers and professionals, …
(more…)

Didn’t quite accomplish all your fitness goals in 2011?
(more…)

Hi. I’m running. I’m also telling some of my stem cells what to do right now. Well, I probably am, based on a new study with mice.

We have what are called mesenchymal stem cells. This type of stem cell goes on to become either fat or bone. Researchers found out that endurance exercise triggers the stem cells to preferentially mature into bone. And having more bone cells means improved blood production, which means a higher oxygen carrying capacity, and better immune reaction and better wound clotting. The research appears in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biolog y, commonly known as the FASEB Journal . [J. M. Baker, Michael De Lisio and Gianni Parise, " Endurance exercise training promotes medullary hematopoiesis "]

[More]

(more…)

Personal trainer Cornell McClellan was working out with President Obama one morning when he had a revelation.
(more…)

Labor Day’s over, and Americans fortunate enough to have jobs are getting back to work. But all work and no play might make us, well, less productive. That’s the finding of a study that looked at the effects of an employee exercise program in which workers worked out during office hours.

Researchers evaluated employees at a large Swiss public dental health organization. Of the 177 participants, one group exercised two and a half hours during the work week; a second group had the same amount of hours off but didn’t exercise; and a control group worked straight through the week. [More]

(more…)

SCAN Health Plan Arizona is helping seniors start off the year on the right foot … literally. The not-for-profit Medicare Advantage plan is offering 23 health and fitness classes in January.
(more…)

Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder–it is also in the eyes of the beholder’s friends. A study published in April in Psychological Science found that men judge a woman as more attractive when they believe their peers find that woman attractive–supporting a budding theory that groupthink is not as simple as once thought.

Researchers at Harvard University asked 14 college-age men to rate the attractiveness of 180 female faces on a scale of 1 to 10. Thirty minutes later the psychologists asked the men to rate the faces again, but this time the faces were paired with a random rating that the scien­tists told the men were averages of their peers’ scores. The men were strongly influenced by their peers’ supposed judgments–they rated the women with higher scores as more attractive than they did the first time. Functional MRI scans showed that the men were not simply lying to fit in. Activity in their brain’s pleasure centers indicated that their opinions of the women’s beauty really did change.

[More]

(more…)

A free webinar, “Fitness Empire Formula: Making Your Mark in the Fitness Industry,” is now available online. Offered by fitness and personal development guru John Spencer Ellis, the webinar focuses on getting started and succeeding in the industry.Rancho Santa Margarita, CA (PRWEB) December 19, 2011 The fitness industry continues to grow and evolve, offering a variety of career opportunities and …
(more…)

“Desserts” spelled backward is “stressed.”Isn’t life like that? Even the good things in life–fine wine, rich food, sex–can stress you out.

There is just no escaping stress, and some experts even suggest that a little stress is good for you. In my view, that idea is flawed–the misleading result of ­averaging data across many individuals. Yes, high levels of stress are harmful to most people, adversely ­affecting health, mood and productivity. And yes, most people perform and feel better when faced with moderate levels of stress. And sure, very few people know how to be productive when they are not being pushed by stressors–but it can be done. Just as some people are able to perform well under highly stressful conditions (think Olympic athletes), it is also possible to perform well when relaxed (think masters of kung fu). That should be the goal, in my opinion: a life that is productive but also virtually stress-free.

[More]

(more…)

A North Shore fitness trainer has been accused of forging a customer’s signature on a credit card charge for $3,000 worth of training sessions.
(more…)

People can change — but how? This is the central concern of “Redirect,” a new book by Timothy D. Wilson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Wilson offers a tour of recent scientific work on psychological change, with a focus on techniques that help a person who is struggling — bad behavior, bad grades, bad attitudes — find a new, better path. Again and again, Wilson asks: What actually works? The answers can be surprising. He spoke recently with Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.

COOK: A central concept in your book is “story editing.” Can you please explain what you mean by this?

[More]

(more…)

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM– – Freestyle football champion Daniel Cutting has set yet another record to add to his bulging CV, as he performed 1534 keep-ups with a Swiss ball, which was caught on camera at …
(more…)

Laughing with friends releases feel-good brain chemicals, which also relieve pain, new research indicates.

Until now, scientists haven’t proven that like exercise and other activities, laughing causes a release of so-called endorphins.

[More]

(more…)

John Spencer Ellis, founder of a leading national fitness and personal development solutions company, now offers a free Fitness Business and Marketing 101 Video Training online. The training video lesson focuses on the fundamentals of succeeding in the fitness industry today.Rancho Santa Margarita, CA (PRWEB) December 12, 2011 A successful fitness pro can enjoy a great schedule, helping clients …
(more…)

Animal corpses rarely defy the dictate of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" to become fossils–and even if they do, they don’t remain sturdy for long. By the time paleontologists get their hands on ancient remains, the fossils are incredibly fragile. So for decades, researchers have tended to do their close analyses with replicas instead. But in the past decade, 3-D printing has enabled a new solution: printing out copies of skulls and bones.

"My research is in the evolution of higher primates ," says paleoanthropologist Eric Delson, who uses digital models and an Objet Eden260 printer housed at Lehman College in New York City to produce models of primates’ skeletons. 3-D printing allows him to make accurate replicas without damaging the originals, and to generate larger versions of fossils and even reconstructions of lost bones. In fact, the digital models that 3-D printers use as templates make it possible to re-create the remains of long-lost ancestral primates, putting classical model-making methods to shame by printing calculated re-creations of bones that failed to form fossils.

[More]

(more…)

A workout video featuring the folk singer Justin Vernon, who records as Bon Iver, has recently been making the rounds.
(more…)

In October 2009 a small group of robotic space exploration geeks decided to venture out of our comfort zone and began brainstorming different approaches to flying people into space. We were spurred into action when the Augustine com­mission, a blue-ribbon panel that President Barack Obama set up earlier that year to review the space shuttle and its intended successor, reported that “the U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory.” Having worked in an exciting robotic exploration program that has extended humanity’s reach from Mercury to the edge of the solar system, we wondered whether we might find technical solutions for some of NASA’s political and budgetary challenges.

[More]

(more…)