Bad Days Happen

Sometimes I have to sidestep the activity of training, responsibilities and life in general to get a perspective on “what I’m doing now, and why?” Just the movement of getting from one place to another in Manhattan can distort my “well-intended reality”. There are days when a walk down 6th Avenue to 23rd Street feels claustrophobic, almost like there’s no room physically or energetically for me.

I wanted a retreat from everything last week, but I didn’t realize it until after a long grumpy hour at the gym. It was showing up in my body… knee hurt, elbow hurt, no spring in my legs for jumps and I felt really weak.  The scary part is that what I really felt like was “old”.

My brain doesn’t think I’m old, my body’s pretty good, but all last week everything on the outside was hammering away at my favorite commandment: “Never blame anything on your age”. It was a lot of work to stay away from that blame place. I knew the feeling would pass, but not quickly enough for me. There wasn’t a blog posting last week, now you know why.

So I headed up to the Catskills – thinking that alone time in the mountains should turn this around. It was cold, cloudy and rainy. Those kind of creepy dark days just like the middle of winter but without any festive holidays to perk them up. Five wet dark days and then the sun came out like there was never a gloomy day. Everything looked different, my mood slowly shifted, and the reality of handling good and bad days looked a whole lot simpler.

This is how simple it is – I’m not doing the things I do to be 20 again, but to be fully alive, every minute – until I’m not.

Staying fit and strong is a big part of aliveness. If you’re looking for another reason to embrace a healthy, fitness lifestyle, look at your aliveness. Look at it when you’re feeling good – remember that feeling and keep working out… it’ll carry you through the bad times until the sun comes out again.

Train your Body. Train your Mind. Tame your Tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. Never begin an exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

Making Strides

The early morning sun in West Hollywood is streaming into Peet’s Coffee. It’s a crisp sunny Los Angeles morning. Sunset Boulevard is waking up along with me. I feel great and soon I’ll be ready to head out for a run.

My first recollections of the joy of intense “cardio exercise” go back to somewhere around the seventh grade. I had a big, clunky green Schwinn Bike that took me everywhere.  As soon as my parents let me ride it wherever I wanted, off I’d go. Soon, I’d explored every park in East and West Portland. The next year I talked older friends into letting me ride with them into the foothills of Mt. Hood. In the summer, we’d end up splashing in the Sandy River and coming home sunburned.

The idea that we were “exercising” never entered our minds. It was just sheer joy of the adventure and how good everything felt. Moving my body became associated with freedom and fun.

Happy Feet

In high school I started running. Running became an add-on to my bike adventures. I’d had no idea that my legs could take me so many places so fast. At the same time, I felt elated with the activity. While I didn’t understand it back then, my body was releasing tons of “feel good” chemicals. At the same time, all my insecure teen mental chatter would stop for an hour or two.

After high school I transplanted myself from the Pacific Northwest to the San Francisco Bay area. The climate was amazing, and you could run the foothills above Palo Alto all year long. I didn’t have a car, so my bike (now a 10-speed special) became my transportation.

Transportation. I guess that’s what this blog is about. I’m lucky that I love doing things that Trans-port me to a place called elation. As much as I love cars, they’ve never been able to create the same internal feeling for me as physical exertion.

I’ve coached one of my clients away from doing a long daily run. If heroin had a healthy double, running would be it for him. After two weeks of replacing some of his runs with weight training, we saw a body shift – better muscle tone and more energy. After week three, he reported that his weekend run was the most energetic and fastest he’d had in 6 months.

Most of us are like racehorses. If we don’t get out and move – we go stir crazy. Our bodies sag and slow down and our minds slow down too. Overtraining can produce the same results. Personally, I get a little grumpy if I have to be still for too long. When I’ve had a stretch of morning aches that keep me from activity, I start to feel sorry for myself.

Writing this in Peet’s, I see a jogger with an amazing stride coming up the street. As he passes I can see that he’s lost a leg and has an arc of metal to replace it. Nothing is going to stop him from following his bliss. The universe couldn’t have sent a better messenger to me this morning and I’m filled with gratitude and determined to take even better care of my body.

I like being trans-ported.

Getting Started

1. Walk first

If you haven’t run, start by walking. That’s intense walking, not walking to get yourself to work. Walk, then speed walk. Build up to a walk-run-walk-run. You’ll see results faster than you think.

2. Buy Good Shoes

Buy running shoes, not sneakers. Shoes that fit you well, are comfortable and assist you with your stride. You must change them… they don’t last forever. The more you run, the quicker you should replace your shoes. Here’s a shoe buying tip: try on new shoes on in the afternoon, our feet are usually “larger” then.

3. Get F I T

Combine these for your running program – Frequency, Intensity and Time. With this formula, you’d start with walking, graduate to a walk-run and then run. Make your "frequency" every other day, your "intensity" a comfortable pace and your "time" about 30 minutes. Your comfortable pace will increase along with the distance you cover.

4. Lighten up

If you’re severely overweight, lose some weight before you start to run. Your joints will thank you for it. Running exposes your joints to two to three times your body weight – with each foot impact!

5. Hot Stuff

Warm-up means getting your body temperature up before you hit your stride.

Speed walking, jumping jacks or push-ups. Save your heavy duty stretching for after your run.

6. Stretch It Out

When you finish, be sure to stretch. Otherwise you’re like a horse that’s been rode hard and left wet (a sure recipe for problems). Make stretching a part of your practice that you never miss.

7. Hydrate

You’ll want to drink more water and also replace lost electrolytes. Water supports your body in cushioning your joints. Dehydration is a disaster for knees and ankles.

8. Be Social

Run with friend. If you can talk to each other you’re in aerobic mode. If you’re breathing so hard you can’t talk, you’re in anaerobic mode. You’ll want to experience both modes during your run.

9. Lift Weights

Want to improve your run? Lift weights. You’ll have extra muscle and energy to propel you along the way. Long distance running can break down muscle, so build it back and add to your bone density at the same time.

10. Be safe, carry id and don’t hop right into a hot tub after your run. 

Cool down and stretch. If you’ve created inflammation during the run, getting right into a hot tub will make it worse.

Train your Body. Tame your Mind. Tame your Tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. Never begin an exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

Fit for Takeoff

The April-May 2010 issue of MetroSource , an upscale business guide for New York City and Los Angeles, includes an article that I wrote entitled “Fit for Take-Off”.  It’s about exercising when you are away from home and gives you a great Hotel Gym Workout.  I thought I’d share it with you here– especially for everyone outside of MetroSource’s distribution area.  

Traveling on Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet” tour gave me a chance to experience a lot of hotel gyms. Guest conscious establishments, like the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton, know their guests are fitness savvy and provide their gyms with amazing equipment.  Regardless of where you’re staying, most hotels with a gym will provide you with hand weights and dumbbells for working out.

Fit for Takeoff

MetroSource Magazine

Most of my clients are gearing up for bathing suit weather with spring just around the corner. Since it’s also a time for travel, I’m giving those of you who have some training a “portable workout” that is primarily dumbbell-based because most every gym has them.

I love coming back from a trip feeling energized and more fit than when I left. You will too, if you take this program along with you. It’ll help you knock out your training anywhere. For those of you who are just getting started, you may need some instruction first, but don’t use this caution as an excuse to sidestep exercise. Almost anyone can use cardio equipment and do simple abdominal and floor exercises.

Workout Notes

Warm up for each weight workout with five to 10 minutes of cardio. Complete three sets of 12 repetitions for each weight exercise. Target three sets of 25 reps for each abdominal exercise. If you can’t do that, set a benchmark that’s just above what you think you can do and shoot for that number. Do 20 to 40 minutes of “interval training” on your cardio days. If you don’t have the endurance or time for a 40-minute stretch, get up, grab some coffee and hit the gym before breakfast for a 20-minute cardio blast, then come back at the end of the day before dinner and give yourself another 20 minutes. (As an added bonus, you won’t feel guilty if you eat dessert.)

The Workout

Day 1: Chest & Triceps

Flat bench, dumbbell chest press

Incline bench, dumbbell chest press

Flat bench, dumbbell flys

Decline pushups

Triceps dumbbell kickbacks

Triceps bench dips

Day 2: Cardio & Abs

Bent knee leg raises

Oblique crunches

Crunches

Day 3: Back & Biceps

Dumbbell row

Pull ups: narrow & wide grips

Dumbbell biceps curl

Dumbbell hammer curl

Day 4: Cardio & Abs

Knee-in on bench

Stability ball abdominal crunches

Stability ball oblique crunches

Day 5: Legs & Shoulders

Squats and lunges

Leg extensions

Seated dumbbell shoulder press

Side deltoid: Seated lateral raise

Front deltoid: standing forward raise

Posterior deltoid: seated bent-over raise

Day 6: Cardio & Abs 

Flat bench crunches

Flat bench bicycle

Flat bench Russian twist

Train your Body. Train your Mind. Tame your Tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. Never begin and exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

Master your Body

Every week I receive questions about quick-fixes. They're usually body image related questions. About things like fat burners, bio-identical growth hormone replacement and liposuction. These quick-fixes are countered with questions about self- esteem, resetting our mind to make healthy choices and being in charge of our destiny – the "do it yourself" program. When we look at our body as a whole, instead of looking just at the part we're not so pleased with, we can achieve what we want and become healthier at the same time.

You can’t get the whole body "do it yourself" program at Home Depot, and rarely do you find a doctor who understands body wholeness. It’s a personal commitment that will get you what you want. You have to find out what works for you. I hope I can convey the intensity of the power that we all have – to create what we want. The outcome of what you want may be different from what I want, but the process has a similar path and ending – with more confidence, energy, happiness and a feeling of abundance. You just can’t help that. When you connect with your body, you connect with the flow of the universe.

It’s taken me years to be able to write that, I figured if I shared it, maybe you’d get it faster than I did. These 10 tips can help get you there.

Ten Tips for Spring

Jump Start 

Do this if you’re in an office all day long or haven’t been exercising. Take two breaks during the day and speed walk for 10 minutes. Finish with as many push-ups as you can. At the end of the day, do the same thing. That’s 30 minutes of stress-free cardio. When the days get longer and you’re feeling stronger, turn your 10-minute end of the day cardio into a 30-minute program.

Get Clean

A 14-day gentle “metabolic detox” and clean diet shift will get your metabolism fired up and send your extra weight away. If you’re starting a workout program, do this for a good foundation. The detox will help you reset your eating habits for spring. There are several good detox supplements and diets available. I developed one with my partner Dr. Steven Margolin called the Burn &  Build Body 14-Day Anti-Aging Detox.

Be a Loser

Hop on the scale -- go ahead. Weigh yourself. Now put the scale in the closet and don’t use it for a week. Pretend like you’re on the “Biggest Loser”. Weigh yourself once a week, and pay attention to how your clothes fit. That’s what’s going to tell you how much your body is really changing!

Plan to Succeed

Set your goals for your body. Project 3 months and one year ahead. Now break your goals down into small monthly steps you can master. Always keep your goals in sight, and everyone will think you made achieving them look easy. Remember, you gotta work hard to make it look easy!

High and Low

Get a hormone test. Do a saliva test – it’s the most accurate. Find a doctor who understands this stuff, and work with your doctor to understand your hormone balance. If you’re a guy, you want your testosterone to be dominant. Free testosterone is important to measure as well. Exercise and diet are the primary keys to balancing all hormones.

Nail that Spike

Insulin spikes will take away all your hard work at the gym. Control your sugar and refined carbohydrate intake. Avoid fried and low quality fats. Your liver is one of the keys to healthy hormone balance and production of growth hormone. Love it and take care of it. Lay off excess alcohol, hydrogenated oils and sugars.

Know your Pancreas

This is the organ that secrets insulin. Insulin regulates food storage and metabolism. When you over indulge in sugar (sugar from alcohol and refined “white” carbohydrates count too) you strain your pancreas and gain weight. An unhappy pancreas can eventually stop producing insulin altogether, then you’ll be dealing with diabetes. Can you see your abs? If not, your pancreas is probably overworked.

Have a Drink

Go ahead, have quite a few drinks. Water, that is. Among other things, proper hydration is anti-aging, anti-cancer, anti-allergy and anti-asthma. It also pumps up your muscles. Isn’t that what you’re working out for?  Try these for super-hydration:

1  Add a cup of coconut water to your quart of water, it’s full of electrolytes.

2  Squeeze a lemon, add a pinch of cayenne pepper, a few grains of Celtic sea salt and a spoonful of agave to your water for an alkalinizing boost.

3  Drink pure water and avoid chlorine and fluoride. Coffee and soft drinks don’t count.

4  Ice water shuts down your digestive fires, and is tough on your organs. Stick with cool, warm or room temperature water.

5  Drink at least 50% of your weight in ounces of water. More if you are intensely exercising. For most of us that’s at least 3 quarts of water every day. 

Get Beach Ready

Just eating and walking won’t get you beach ready. Find a gym that’s convenient and one you’ll love going to. Now get yourself there, work hard and break a sweat. Remember those goals you set? Add some “gym goals”. Maybe it’s the number of push-ups and pull-ups you can do. If you want more energy, you’ve got to use it to get it! Give yourself a 60-day challenge, or better yet, do it with a buddy so you can support each other. Be your own “before and after” story.

Freaky Control

You’ll like this. Really. When you take control of your food you’re in charge. When you schedule in your workouts and stay committed, you’re in charge. When you are on the path to the healthy, fit body you want, you’re in charge. When this happens, your feeling of personal power and self-esteem will soar. Friends may want to sabotage your program when you’re out to dinner with them, just know that they’re secretly envious of you.

Train your Body. Train your Mind. Tame your Tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. Never begin and exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

Shallow Inspiration

Vanity is Fierce

We always hear that working out is good for us and that we should do it for our health. Sure, that works for me. I promote health right here on this blog – and will continue to. But right now I want to give a gold star to vanity motivation. No, make that 10 gold stars. Vanity is one of the most wonderful, shallow and intensely motivating things that can inspire us to workout.

Think – Hot guy from Mad Men.

Working out = Looking Better

When you are wearing the body that you want, you’ll look and feel better. When you feel better your cells vibrate with more life. So far, nothing wrong with that vanity motivator, who doesn’t want to look and feel better?

Working out = Feeling confident

When you’re looking and feeling better, you’ll feel more confident. Confidence breeds success in all aspects of life.  Confidence allows you to wear your clothes with style. Whatever you choose, a T-shirt and jeans or skinny tie and suit, you’ll make the clothes. You won’t need clothes to make you. Again, the vanity motivator gets an A+.

Working out = Abundant energy

When you are expending focused physical energy you’ll have more energy. You’ll sleep deeper; your sex life will be more fun.  Is anyone going to argue with the sex angle?

Working out = You win

When our bodies transform, everything in our life changes – our energy increases, our relationships get juicier, our minds sharper and we look better in and out of clothes. 

By guiltlessly allowing vanity to motivate you, you’ll achieve your health goals as well.  So just imagine having the body you always wanted, no matter what age you are. Imagine putting on a suit with the confidence of one of the guys from Mad Men and having a great time everywhere you go. I’m sure you’ve already imagined the sex part.

Train your body. Train your mind. Tame your tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. Never begin an exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

Heartbeat Hotel

It's in our Chest

When I moved to NYC  5 years ago I had my own personal recession going on. No surprise, my identity had been used by someone very close to me and I had lost almost everything. (This did have a happy ending – it took 8 years, and he ended up with "felon" after his name). Anyway, one afternoon walking through Chelsea on the way to an audition, I passed the VIEW Bar and saw a sign up for "Best Chest Contest" – winner gets $1,000. 


Take off my shirt for the possibility of ending my financial recession... why not?

The night of the contest – in my mid-50's – I was definitely the "old guy" there. And being next to Mr. Gay New York didn't give me lots of encouragement. But my friends and boyfriend, Steven, braved the rain to support me. My intention that night was to win. It worked for the judges and the crowd because I left the bar with my rent paid for the next month.

Most of us don't work out to win contests in bars, but every once and a while it comes in handy. There were better chests in the show, but I had worked on symmetry, balance and proportion. If you're cut, defined and fully present you can always win a crowd – no matter what your age. 


Thinking back to earlier times, us natives used to respect and admire our elders. That is until we were taught to treat them as old – by the elders themselves. Somewhere along the way, the older, wiser members of our tribes turned into – just plain "old folks". What's up with that? Age is a chronological number, never a pass to drop out of life. 

Breath and Form
When we drop out we cease to be present, we become numb to the everyday things that turn us on. We simply become tourists that visit our own life – stopping in once and a while to take snapshots and pick-up souvenirs. When we stop being a drop-in tourist and are fully present, we create a vibration that will keep us young and healthy. And the more present we are, the better it gets. The higher the vibration, the better we feel. Even diseases have difficulty staying with a happy body.


When you workout for an hour, with full attention to your breath, form and nothing else, your mind clears and your body relaxes. You're not focused on anything except the present, so everything comes into focus. 

Transform yourself 

from the inside out, 

or the outside in, 

and you'll transform 

your world.

The physical-spiritual transformation creates peace in your body. When you've worked out the tensions that press on your chest – and your vibration is clear – bingo, your heart opens to the world. Now, you're lighter and suddenly everyone is attracted to you.


Go figure...  all you did was workout.

An open heart filled with light and love is a gift we all have. Go ahead, unwrap it – it's Valentine's Day. 

Wishing you peace, love and abundance,

Rick


Train your Body, Tame your Mind, Tame your Tongue.

Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional or nutritionist. You should never begin an exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your health care provider.

The 11th Commandment

More than Anti-Aging
Every time I cut myself I’m amazed. I can’t help but feel like the bionic man. First I bleed and then my alien super skin takes over and stitches the whole thing up. Sometimes you can’t even see the patch job. It seems to happen faster than taking a '70 Mustang from 0-60. 

Skin repair always reminds me of the constant rebuilding my body does. When I’m feeling great, I simply forget about it, but when I’m sick or dealing with a health challenge, I’m aware of every single area that’s in pain or needs attention. Fortunately, we were designed to renew and regenerate. Wasn't that the 11th Commandment – "Thou Shalt Rebuild and Regenerate"? (The 12th one was Eat Organic, but that's another blog) Exercise helps clear lymph systems, strengthens muscles and bones, oxygenates cells and helps our bodies regenerate, heal and magically youth.

If you’re dealing with cancer, or a life threatening illness, keep hitting the gym. If you feel “sucker punched” and want to give up, don’t, just work out smarter. Find a doctor who will support you in caring for your whole body. The days my mind wants to keep me from the gym are the days I get the most emotional and physical benefits from it. You might feel like your walking on a newly hot tarred highway in the middle of August when you're on the way to your workout, but it's worth it. 

Here’s my "Zen Exercise" version of regenerating and youthing

Zen Mind

We create with our thoughts.

Zen Exercise

What we push against pushes back against us.

Zen Muscle

Resistance makes our muscles work hard and break down.

Zen Repair

Rest and eat the right nutrients.

Zen Body

Muscular-skeletal system renews.

Zen Mind

Refreshed mental clarity, creativity.

Pretty simple isn’t it? We have an ongoing external and internal "youthing" system. The opposite of this is disuse and neglect. The highest groups at risk for illness, depression, premature aging and early death are individuals who are completely sedentary.

A Tufts University study by researchers William Evans and Brian Rosenberg has shown that exercise can reverse ten measurable biomarkers associated with aging. Their studies were published in a book called Biomarkers. The book title refers to the ten measurable biomarkers of age that have been shown to be reversible. It didn't matter what age a person was, everyone reversed their biomarkers of aging on an exercise program.

If you’ve been putting off getting started, here are ten good reasons to hit it at the gym, and hit it as hard as you can. Modern medicine rates its statistics on the “average adult”. Is that really what you want to be? 

1. Exercise develops lean body (muscle) mass.

The “average adult” loses 6.6 pounds of muscle each decade.

Yikes, that’s almost 20 pounds of muscle lost between the ages of 30 and 60. Guess what it’s replaced with.

2. Exercise increases strength and muscle function.

Bundles of muscles and motor nerves deteriorate between the ages of 30 and 70 with the “average adult” losing 20% of the motor nerves in the thighs, with similar losses in all the large and small muscle groups elsewhere in the body. This brings a whole new meaning to bundle up. Whatever your exercise choice, your muscles and motor nerves will thank you.

3. Exercise increases your basal metabolic rate.

The body’s metabolic rate declines in the “average adult” by 2% every decade after the age of 20.  That’s an 8% decrease by the time you’re sixty. When your metabolism slows down, your body stores the unused calories and fuel for the future as guess what…. See number 4.

4. Exercise reduces body fat.

Between the age of 20 and 65 the “average adult” doubles his or her ratio of fat to muscle. This can be even higher in very sedentary lifestyles. Excess fat, particularly belly fat is deadly to men, promotes estrogen production which tips a mans natural testosterone/estrogen balance toward estrogen, which in turn promotes more fat production.

5. Exercise increases aerobic capacity.

By the age of 65, the “average adult” looses the ability to use oxygen by 30 to 40%. Don’t you wonder what’s going to oxygenate your cells, help your body remove toxins and get you to the bus when you have to run a block to catch it? There is a reason for doing cardio. Interval training combines anaerobic and aerobic work in the same workout. This is the best way to increase your aerobic capacity and burn calories.

6. Exercise decreases blood pressure.

The “average adult” experiences an increase in blood pressure with aging. Why put your system through the problem when you can maintain it with age-defying exercise. If your blood pressure is out of the ballpark, you’ll probably have to take medication, if not, work on controlling it with exercise and diet changes.

7. Exercise increases blood-sugar tolerance.

Type II diabetes risk increases with age in the “average adult” because of the body’s reduced ability to use glucose in the bloodstream. Exercise amps up your natural ability to deal with everything, including glucose. Better yet, tame your tongue and exercise.

8. Exercise improves your cholesterol/HDL ratio.

Overall cholesterol in the “average adult” increases with age, and “bad” LDL cholesterol gains ground over “good” HDL cholesterol.  Cholesterol (the good kind) is required to produce testosterone; testosterone helps our bodies build muscle.

9. Exercise increases bone Density:

Bones lose strength with age in the “average adult”, when this goes too far it becomes the disease osteoporosis. We don’t like this. Push some weights. When legs have to bear weight, they become stronger and denser. Studies have shown that running has the same effect to leg bones. The surprise here is that the same study showed that runners forearm bones were also denser even though no weight bearing exercises were being done… a message given to the whole body at the quantum level through (probably) hormonal chemical signals.

10. Exercise assists with body temperature regulation.

The “body’s ability to regulate a steady internal temperature of 98.6 degrees declines with age in the “average adult”. Our bodies like to be comfortable and everything functions better at 98.6. So exercise and wear that cashmere sweater just because it looks good on you.

If exercise is about getting healthy, the side-effect is looking good. So when one of my favorite clients says that the only reason he exercises is to look good, I just smile. 

Train your Body. Train your Mind. Tame your Tongue.


Information on this site is not a substitute for consulting a licensed medial professional. You should never begin an exercise or nutritional regime without consulting your physician.