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Is your child overweight?

Here is a great video from the Today's Show that shows how to parent children who struggle with being overweight.

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Pure Fitness is the Proud Sponsor of Pat's Run!

 

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Pure Fitness is joining with the Phoenix Suns to get you the best deals on Tickets

"Best Deal Available Anywhere On Suns Tickets
Because Of Our Team's Relationship with Pure Fitness"

www.suns.com/purefitnesstix

Wallstreet Journal Article on the Benefits of Fitness

Even Moderate Physical Activity Can Boost the Immune System and Protect Against Chronic Diseases
By LAURA LANDRO

As millions of Americans flock to the gym armed with New Year's resolutions to get in shape, medical experts are offering an additional reason to exercise: Regular workouts may help fight off colds and flu, reduce the risk of certain cancers and chronic diseases and slow the process of aging.

Physical activity has long been known to bestow such benefits as helping to maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress, not to mention tightening those abs. Now, a growing body of research is showing that regular exercise—as simple as a brisk 30- to 45-minute walk five times a week—can boost the body's immune system, increasing the circulation of natural killer cells that fight off viruses and bacteria. And exercise has been shown to improve the body's response to the influenza vaccine, making it more effective at keeping the virus at bay.

"No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take," says David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab in Kannapolis, N.C. Dr. Nieman has conducted several randomized controlled studies showing that people who walked briskly for 45 minutes, five days a week over 12 to 15 weeks had fewer and less severe upper respiratory tract infections, such as colds and flu. These subjects reduced their number of sick days 25% to 50% compared with sedentary control subjects, he says.


Medical experts say inactivity poses as great a health risk as smoking, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, depression, arthritis and osteoporosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 36% of U.S. adults didn't engage in any leisure-time physical activity in 2008.

Even lean men and women who are inactive are at higher risk of death and disease. So while reducing obesity is an important goal, "the better message would be to get everyone to walk 30 minutes a day" says Robert Sallis, co-director of sports medicine at Fontana Medical Center, a Southern California facility owned by managed-care giant Kaiser Permanente. "We need to refocus the national message on physical activity, which can have a bigger impact on health than losing weight."

Regular exercise has been shown to combat the ongoing damage done to cells, tissues and organs that underlies many chronic conditions. Indeed, studies have found that exercise can lower blood pressure, reduce bad cholesterol, and cut the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

Building on that earlier research, scientific studies are now suggesting that exercise-induced changes in the body's immune system may protect against some forms of cancer. For example, Harvard Medical School's consumer Web site (hms.harvard.edu/public/consumer) notes that more than 60 studies in recent years taken together suggest that women who exercise regularly can expect a 20% to 30% reduction in the chance of getting breast cancer compared with women who didn't exercise. While researchers are still studying the molecular changes caused by exercise and how they affect cancer, the studies suggest the outcome could be due to exercise's ability to lower estrogen levels.

One study of 3,000 women being treated for breast cancer, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that for those patients with hormone-responsive tumors, walking the equivalent of three to five hours per week at an average pace reduced the risk of dying from the disease by 50% compared with more sedentary women.

Researchers are also investigating whether exercise can influence aging in the body. In particular, they are looking at whether exercise lengthens telomeres, the strands of DNA at the tips of chromosomes. When telomeres get too short, cells no longer can divide and they become inactive, a process associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death.

In a study published in November in Circulation, the medical journal of the American Heart Association, German researchers compared two groups of professional athletes (32 of whom were in their early 20s, and 25 who were middle-aged) with two groups (26 young and 21 middle-aged) who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers. The athletes had significantly less erosion in telomeres than their more sedentary counterparts. The study concluded that physical activity has an anti-aging effect at the cellular level, suggesting exercise could prevent aging of the cardiovascular system.

Efforts are underway to get sedentary Americans moving. The federal government issued its first national exercise guidelines in 2008. Now it is working with a number of medical and fitness groups to develop a National Physical Activity plan, to be released early this year, to encourage Americans to adhere to the guidelines.

The guidelines, developed by the Department of Health and Human Services and available online at health.gov/paguidelines, recommend that adults get at least two hours and 30 minutes weekly of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, or an equivalent combination of both. The guidelines also say that additional health benefits can be had from as much as doubling the minimum recommendation for aerobic exercise. Also recommended: muscle-strengthening activities two or more days per week, which protects against a decline in bone mass, especially that experienced by post-menopausal women.

Kaiser Permanente's Dr. Sallis also is chairman of Exercise is Medicine, a two-year-old program developed by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Medical Association to encourage doctors to assess and review each patient's physical activity program at every visit. A survey by the ACSM, whose members include physicians and exercise-science professionals, found that only four out of 10 doctors talk to their patients about the importance of exercise, and they don't always offer suggestions on the best ways to be physically active.

Kaiser Permanente's California facilities last year began rolling out exercise counseling to eight million members as part of their regular doctor visits. The company also has set up a toll-free telephone line to help members create a personal-fitness plan incorporating favorite activities like gardening. "Exercise can be used like a vaccine to prevent disease and a medication to treat disease," says Dr. Sallis. "If there were a drug with the same benefits as exercise, it would instantly be the standard of care."

While some patients may have risk factors such as heart conditions that could lead to heart attacks and sudden cardiac death with physical exertion, physicians can screen for such risks before prescribing an exercise program. Also, the exerciseismedicine.org Web site includes videos and self-assessment tools for consumers on how to start an exercise program, including how to exercise with diseases such as asthma and heart disease, and exercise following a stroke or heart attack.

Starting an exercise program can have benefits at any age, but is particularly important for those over 40, when physical strength, endurance, flexibility and balance begin to decline, says Pamela Peeke, a Bethesda, Md., physician and fitness expert who is the author of "Fit to Live," an advice book on how to create and stick to a fitness plan.

Naomi Henderson, 66, says Dr. Peeke gave her an exercise prescription several years ago, when she weighed 220 pounds. The plan called for Ms. Henderson, who owns her own market-research company, to start by walking on a treadmill five minutes a day and gradually increase the duration as her fitness level improved. Eventually she was able to walk in a marathon. Ms. Henderson says she has slimmed down to a size 12 from an 18 and says she is rarely ill. "I look at exercise as no different than a drug I have to take to stay healthy," she says.

Lisa Callahan, co-director of the Women's Sports Medicine Center at New York's Hospital for Special Surgery, says her patients are often only partially aware of the benefits of exercise.

They may know that it is helpful in reducing their risk of osteoporosis, for example, but they usually don't know that a combination of strength training, aerobic exercise and balance training is most effective at staving off the disease, says Dr. Callahan, who is the author of "The Fitness Factor," a guide for women.

Dr. Nieman, of Appalachian State University, says that during exercise, two types of immune cells circulate more freely in the blood, neutralizing pathogens. Although the immune system returns to normal within three hours, the effect of the exercise is cumulative, adding up over time to reduce illness rates, he says. He compares the process to "a cleaner who comes in for an hour a day, so by the end of a month, your house looks much better."

But, Dr. Nieman says, high-intensity exercise over long periods, like running a marathon, can "take a good thing too far." Such exertion can induce the release of stress hormones in the body that damp some functions of the immune system temporarily, increasing susceptibility to infection for short periods. He cites a five-year study he conducted on 350 athletes who completed an ultra-marathon 160-kilometer race in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Among the contestants, one out of four reported sickness in the two weeks following the races.

Still, says Robert Mazzeo, a professor in the department of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, although a single bout of intense exercise can suppress the immune system, long-term training in marathoners and other athletes can boost their baseline immunity and ability to respond to the stress of intense exercising.

Rather than worrying about super athletes, however, "my concern is the sedentary people who start out pumping the Stairmaster too hard, then get sick and stop working out," says Dr. Mazzeo. "If you've made a New Year's resolution to get in shape, don't try to do it all at once," he says.

Thank you Phoenix for helping feed over 20,000 families this holiday season!

Throughout November and December, Pure Fitness collected canned food items in order to feed over 20,000 families this holiday season.  Pure Fitness partnered with Fox 10 and My 45, to bring the valley the biggest food drive of the year, benefiting Phoenix First Assembly Church and their Adopt-the–Block program.  On December 20th, thousands of needy families from all over the valley, were bused to Phoenix First Assembly where they witnessed the true testimony of giving as we handed out over 40,000 food bags to those in need.  In addition, each child received a Christmas present to help celebrate the holidays.  Pure Fitness employees came ready to serve the community as they passed out presents and food for over two hours.  Thousands of families will have a brighter and healthier holiday season thanks to our members and guests, who helped bring our goal to serve to fruition.  Thank you for your support, encouragement and participation. 

Here are a few pictures of the tremendous impact you have made!

 

 

Pure Fitness Food Drive --- Lets reach a million cans!

Pure Fitness Tip for today!

Check out our Pure Fitness tip of the day. Learn how to take those small steps to begin to see your long term results! 

Financial Fitness

Finding STRENGTH in Today Housing Market

Saturday, November 7, 2009 10:00 AM

Chandler Pure Fitness

Pure Fitness has invited financial experts to give a seminar on how you can be financially wise in this housing market!

You will learn:

• How to receive $8,000 free
• The truth about valley home sales?
• When are interest rates going up?
• Should I wait to sell?
• When is a good time to buy?
• The difference between short sale and foreclosure
• Whats the driving the market

Open forum setting.  Bring your questions, family, friends and neighbors...

Presented by Arizona Best Real Estate and Pioneer Title: Vicky Stearns and Kerri Shearer

Dr. Billingham Offers His Expert Advice for Help in Treating a Sports Injury

There are more options then just treating sports injuries with RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation) and NSAIDs

 

Effective management of sports injuries requires first understanding the body’s injury process.  Most sports injuries occur through repetitive motion or overuse injuries, and only a small portion come from a direct traumatic event that involves fracture, full thickness muscle tears, or tearing of cartilage or ligaments.  What I am going to focus on is overuse injury which happens all the time when working out with weights.

 

If we look at muscles as a simple pulley system.  The rope represents the muscle, the weight, the bone.  Muscles contract to move bone. If we pull on the rope it lifts the weight.  During training sessions in the gym you will put extreme amounts of load on the body.  This repeated or sustained contractions associated with working out causes a decrease in blood flow to the working muscles and tendons.  This lack of blood flow then causes an accumulation of waste products. These waste products are very similar to those produced when a muscle is torn. The waste products in turn attract the cells that produce scar tissue. This is helpful if indeed you have torn a muscle, but in the case of overuse in juries, the body is signaled to repair muscles that are not really damaged.  The body is thus fooled into thinking there has been an injury and tries to repair it. The result is an accumulation of scar tissue in otherwise healthy muscles and tendons. The scar tissue increases stress on the tendons and they begin to degenerate.  This degenerative process is known as tendinosis.

 

Overuse injuries usually start with one muscle or tendon developing scar tissue. The involved muscle is then weakened, requiring neighboring muscles to become overworked. With continued use and time, the neighboring muscles begin to develop scar tissue. This cycle of increasing load, buildup of scar tissue, and degeneration continues until the body can no longer compensate. At this point, the system has broken down and chronic pain sets in.

 

Tendinosis versus Tendinitis

In 1979, surgeons Robert P. Nirschl and Frank A. Pettrone removed sections of injured elbow tendons from patients and examined them under a microscope. Remarkably, they found no inflammation. Instead, they found that the tendons were degenerated, swollen, grayish rather than white, and soft. Tendinosis is the correct name for this condition, which has for years been mislabeled as tendinitis.

 

NSAIDs treatment will only work if there are inflammatory cells present at the site of injury.

 

Tendinosis Treatment

Now if we go back to our pulley system analogy, to represent scar tissue you can imagine rust on the pulley wheel. So much rust that the wheel can hardly turn.  Now if we pull on the rope the wheel won’t turn smoothly so it takes far greater force to lift the weight.  That extra force might fray the rope i.e a tear in the muscle or at the very least put more tension causing muscle soreness and inflammation.  The solution to the problem is not to keep pulling harder on the rope with added exercise as in traditional physical therapy, or to treat with NSAIDs. To correct this problem we need to apply a lubricant like WD40 to the rusty pulley wheel.  Once the pulley wheel is free to move – then you can start to pull on the rope to lift the weight.

 

In the body, we break up scar tissue formation by using manual therapy techniques like Active Release Techniques and Graston Technique before rehab exercises are performed.  These techniques are designed to free up the scar tissue that forms.

 

The time it takes to break up the scar tissue can vary greatly from person to person.  In general, the longer you have had a condition, the more scar tissue there is the longer it takes to treat.  In most cases, after each treatment an immediate improvement should be felt with better range of motion and less pain.  After about 24-48 hours the tissue starts to tighten.  The most effective treatment plan is to have another treatment session about 48-72 hours later, until the scar tissue has been broken down and then the strengthening and rehab can begin.

 

Dr. Billingham, D.C. is certified in the treatment and management of soft-tissue injuries. He has treated athletes and patients of all levels with an outstanding success rate. For more information you can visit his website at www.sportsfxmed.com. 

A note from Christi Taylor

At Pure Fitness Christi Taylor is our Group Exercise coordinator.  Christi is currently using her 25 years of experience, as a leader in the fitness industry, to develop Pure Fitness’ very own line of specialized group exercise classes.  As a result, you will find these exciting new classes throughout all of our health clubs here in the Phoenix metropolitan area! Here is a note from her! 

Why Group Fitness?

By Christi Taylor

  In the beginning group fitness was the center of the fitness industry.  In those days we didn’t call it “group fitness.” Back then, all group classes were aerobic training in nature, so we entitled this form of fitness as our “aerobic class.”    Since those days, format options in the group fitness studio have expanded; we now offer all types of fitness training selections. Here at Pure Fitness, we have it all – aerobics, strength training, flexibility training, core, combat, spinning, dance, and even a large selection of mind/body classes.   I’ve been teaching classes and training instructors since the early 80’s.  In my experience, the biggest difference in group fitness now - as opposed to then - isn’t the exercise.  It is true that we offer much more now than before; however, there is one thing that group fitness offers now that you can’t get from anywhere else.  That’s the social connection.   In the 90’s this social connection was beginning to take form.  People that do not like the enclosed environment of group fitness began to move out of the studio and onto the fitness floor, taking advantage of other training options.  This was a very good transition for them.  However, those that did not leave the studio were the people that truly enjoy the enclosed environment of a group fitness class.  They enjoy the challenge and accountability of working as a team and socializing with a group.  That is the type of person to whom we now cater to in our Pure Fitness group fitness program.   I witnessed one other huge transition with regards to social connection, and that began after 9/11.  This event, designed to damage our society, ushered in a small burst of light to the group fitness world.  Before 9/11, people wanted a place where they could go that others would know their name and they all had something in common.  After 9/11, people needed this place more than ever.   This day formed a great change in group fitness as we knew it.   Today, if you are looking for the social center of any health club, just look to the group fitness department.  That is where most of the members frequent.  That is where most of the members know each other.  And that is where a club can explode to great heights or crumble from within.   When the era of the “aerobic class” began, it was all about exercise.  Through the years, it’s become so much more.  It’s now about the human connection.  The place where relationships begin, the “Cheers” of fitness where everybody knows your name, or possibly the family you never had. You hold on tight to relationships like this.    I’ve never been a student; I’ve always been the instructor.  I can tell you that it is no different for us instructors.  Our group fitness classes are our social center; our members are our friends, family, and accountability partners.  Instructors love their members as much as members love their instructors.  We all love the enclosed environment of accountability we call “Group Fitness.”  We have that in common.   For the past 15 years I have told my instructors, “Any time a member walks into your group fitness class, you have received a personal compliment from them, and you need to treat them accordingly.”  I believe this because each person at your club starts their day with many fitness options available to them.  They can workout at home on their own or they can walk or jog the streets.  If they choose to go to the health club, they are again flooded with many more top notch fitness options and training modalities.    However, if they decide against all of those options and schedule their time to arrive at the club as your class is beginning, just to take your class, then you can be assured and know without a doubt that you’ve been complimented on a high scale.  After all, time is valuable.  And that person chose to spend their valuable time with you.   So, why group fitness?  It’s the people you meet and the relationships you develop.  Oh, and by the way – it’s also good for you.  Group fitness classes keep you strong, healthy, fit, and happy.  But those are just the “cherry on top” of an already great relational event!  That is why I love my job as a group fitness instructor – and always will!