I hope you all got a chance to watch the Olympics.  They were awe inspiring!  The most exciting part for me was all the talk of “older” Olympians on a come back – winning medals and doing things only the “youngsters” were once thought capable of achieving.

Did you know that 38 year old Romanian Constantina Tomescu Dita claimed a dominating victory in the women’s marathon and was the oldest woman ever to do so?  41 year old Mom Dara Torres walked away with 2 Silver medals beating out competitors half her age.  The point being is YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL!  And as Dara Torres would say “don’t put an age limit on your dreams”.
So, now that the kids are gearing back up for school and summer vacations are coming to an end, it’s time you start thinking about yourself and what your dreams and aspirations are.  Sure, maybe they aren’t as extreme as winning a gold medal in the Olympics, but that doesn’t matter…your dreams and goals are you unique to you!  Don’t delay another day, get out there and achieve your biggest dreams!

How can I help you?  Would you like more informational articles and comparisons on fitness products?  If so, just let me know and I will get these articles up.  Being a Mater Personal Trainer based just outside of DC I know the latest and greatest in all the fitness products - want to know what works and what you shouldn’t waste your money … just email me at: jessica@stormwellness.com  I want to make sure that I fine tune the articles to your needs.  Remember, I am here to serve you and to help you lead a healthier lifestyle.  I don’t just want to tone your body up – I want to reshape your lifestyle too!

I have noticed a lot of action on the Storm Wellness Site these past few months – I am curious to hear more from some of you out there who have tried ediets, weight watchers, Diet To Go, NutriSystems etc., based off my informational articles.  There truly is nothing like a personal trainer’s opinion on these weight loss programs but I also love incorporating your feedback - that’s how I am able to come up in a fair and objective way the advantages and disadvantages of each program.  So keep write in with your stories – successful or not, I would love to hear them!

Hey Everyone, I was recently featured on Kaiser Serajuddin’s very popular Super Trainer Site.  You can check it out by following this link:  http://super-trainer.com/jessica-storm/ Although the article is mostly for aspiring personal trainers I still give some good tid bits away about my Personal Training company Storm Fitness and why it’s been so successful in helping clients not only locally but around the world with fitness and nutrition programs.  Enjoy!

In order to see true change in your body you need to get out of your comfort zone and SHOCK your body! This means changing your exercise program around completely OR eating entirely different - in some cases it requires doing both! First and foremost you need to decide what your goals are - if you are looking to put more muscle mass on but you are an avid running and enjoy marathons - then this is going to be a difficult task. You need to decide what you want - more muscle mass or marathons because it’s too difficult to have both. I have never known a figure competitor in tip top shape who also was training for a marathon - it just doesn’t happen. The two counter each other by the running eating away at too much muscle tissue from all that long slow distance training.

So, if your not happy with your body then first decide what you want it to look like and second get help from a personal trainer to design a program to get you the body you want! One that you are happy with and that suits your everyday needs. If you enjoy lots of sports and want to be active with your family but don’t have a massive amount of time to dedicate to training then functional training and circuit training are going to be the best modes of training for you. But, the only true way to tell is to consult with a trainer about your body and your needs and have them get you on the right path so that you are making the most of your time in the gym!

The spring weather is here and with that comes fun road races - many in your local neighborhood! If you are an avid road racer or even an occasional road racer then now is a good time to ramp up your training and start training to break last years race record! The first thing you need to know…if you are looking to break your old time then you need to practice running faster. If you’re not running intervals then you are missing out on getting faster and instead, as you get older your race results will continue to decline. We don’t want that now do we?

The first thing you need to do is add in 1 speed interval session a week. You can either find a local track or keep tabs of the time on your sports watch to track your intervals. Depending on what type of race you are running is how you will determine the length of the intervals you should be running. Here is an example of what one of your interval running days will look like if you were training for a 10k Race:

You will want to warm up for 1 mile nice and easy. Next you will want to find a long hill that takes you about 2-3 minutes to climb. You are going to run up it 5-8 times and jog back down nice and easy in between. When you are finished cool down for 1 mile. The hills will increase your stamina and pain tolerance - not to mention when you are running downhill or flat in the race it will seem like a breeze if you have done some hill training.

Another example interval would be warming up for 1 mile and then running 1/2 mile intervals - 6 times. If you have a track nearby then this would be 2 laps around the track and you would do this a total of 6 times. In between each interval you can jog lightly to catch your breath or rest for a few minutes before repeating your next interval. If you don’t have a track and want to do these on the road then just use your sports watch and approximate about how long it takes you to do a 1/2 mile at 10k pace and then run that amount of time for each interval. Running 1/2 mile intervals will teach you speed and consistency.

Intervals will train your mind to keep running even when it becomes painfully difficult on that 6th interval - and, if it’s too painful and you are burnt out then you know you went out too fast in the other intervals. This will give you more knowledge over your body and teach you how to run a more strategized and mental race so that you don’t putter out before you reach the finish line - like you see so many poor souls do. If you do intervals and train your mind and body - then you won’t be one of those poor souls! Instead you will be finishing feeling strong and with a new Personal Record! Get to know your body and what it’s truly capable of - push your speed limits with intervals!

I have seen it happen all too many times! People want instant results from their fitness and nutrition programs and when they don’t get them they abandon the program all together - never to experience what they could have achieved -they stop just weeks short of seeing spectaular results! Why is it that we don’t have patience to sculpt a beautiful body anyway? I can tell you the secret of the pro’s is that they are willing to work for it and I mean work hard! They know that they might not see all the weeks of suffering through hard workouts and eating cleaning until at least 6 weeks out and even then they will have 6 more weeks to fine tune and tweak before they hit the figure competition stage with their beautifully sculpted bodies. Look, patience is a hard thing - we all want to see the results NOW, not 6 or 8 weeks from now. But a funny thing happens if you hang in there for 6 + weeks - the 6th week rolls around and Kapoooow! It’s like all that hard work shows up in just one day and suddenly you are getting compliments left and right. It’s really sad when most people drop off around the 3rd or 4th week just right before their results hit. They throw their hands up and say - “see, another thing that didn’t work - nothing works for me”. Well of course it won’t! You need to stick with something longer than a month - get your heart in it and really DO IT! Yeah, it sucks not being able to eat cake and yummy treats - but if you really really really want a great healthy body both inside and out then you need to be willing to put in the time and get some patience! Work on it and you will see the difference and LOVE IT!

Okay, so I am a bit behind in terms of jumping on the band wagon with the newest video craze! It seems everyone has a video out on youtube these days. Well, I plan to do the same as well as posting some video on stormwellness. These videos will demonstrate technique of various exercises as well as talk about hot nutrition/fitness topics that you have always wanted to know the answers to. So, to get started I want you to email me what body parts you would like to learn exercises for or if there are any exercises you have ever wondered how to do correctly. I would be happy to demonstrate form and talk about fine tuning your technique so that you can have the body you have always desired but have not yet been able to achieve. Remember, proper form, clean eating and consistency with your program are the only things that will get you PROVEN results time and time again! So email me what you want to hear and learn about now and let’s get this thing rolling!!