Blog : InForm Fitness

Breaking Down Barriers and Crossing Borders

We’ve entered into a new era here at InForm Fitness.

Let me share some background first so that you can understand why NOW is such a pivotal time at InForm Fitness.

I was a science geek – not your typical profile for an exercise maniac. I followed strenuous exercise programs and was dedicated to being fit. Some would say that I was an arrogant evangelist about it as well, and I just couldn’t understand why my fellow lab technicians didn’t want to get with the program. Then, one day, my boss told me the truth: “Adam, you are always nursing injuries and you look like crap – so why would I want to exercise the way you do?”

That was the moment. You know – that ah ha moment. So I set a new course to discover a safer, more efficient way to exercise. That’s when I discovered the work of Ken Hutchins on slow resistance weight training. While I wasn’t in agreement with all of Hutchins’ work, I did see the premise as being sound. I dug deeper to learn more, found studios that were practicing slow resistance weight training, and became a convert. I believed that this would change the whole fitness industry.

Fast-forward a few years after more research, practice and testing, and with absolutely no business experience; I started InForm Fitness in a Massapequa basement. The business began to take off and so we expanded to a studio in midtown Manhattan- our headquarters today. I also co-authored the book The Power of Ten with my good friend Bill Schley, and it hit the New York Times Best Seller list. I was now getting closer to my dream of being interviewed by Oprah and changing the way the world looked at exercise.

Well, the whole industry didn’t change, and I didn’t get invited to speak to Oprah. But I haven’t wavered one inch from my mission. While Oprah didn’t call, Leslie Stahl and Barbara Walters did. There have been several news programs and articles about The Power of 10 and InForm Fitness so I know it is catching on – but it seems that when we say ‘this workout isn’t for everyone’ – it really isn’t. Not because it can’t or won’t work for them, but because people become very invested in their beliefs – right or wrong, scientifically sound or mystically based – they oppose change.

So back to the point I started with – Breaking Down Barriers and Crossing the Border.

The first barrier: getting found. With several lackluster attempts at a website, we finally found the team to work with that delivered a new website that is already improving our ‘findability’ on the web and delivering a better experience. We’ve also begun a new marketing and communications program – so stay tuned!

The next barrier: getting our vacationing clients back in the gym. While we recognized that many of our New York City clients spend their summers in the Hamptons, coming back to the city for their workout was inconvenient. This sparked my idea of taking the gym to them – in a custom-designed, full-workout gym-on-a-bus! We rolled out InForm Mobile in the Hamptons this past summer. And we’ll be making ‘fit stops’ throughout Long Island and New Jersey all year long.

The third barrier: Crossing the Border. As you probably have picked on up by now, I believe that the Power of 10 workout should be the norm. And to make that happen, we have to aim beyond New York. We are excited to announce that in addition to our New York City, Massapequa, Lehigh Valley locations, and our bus, we now have a new location in Los Angeles, California. We are close to adding another location in Santiago, Chile – and another in Virginia!

After much delay, we are at a point in our journey where we have a great team and the right platform to consistently share our ideas and information that I believe will help improve your quality of life.

If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, I invite you to do so. You might also want to check out our new Tumblr site and to join us on Facebook, where we plan on having some lively discussions. See you online!

Clean Water – Bottle or Tap?

So many of us rely on bottled water while others who have become more eco friendly have given up buying bottled water and are using reusable water carriers. This encourages the use of tap water. So the question is which is cleaner water – bottled or tap?

Two independent studies have confirmed that tap water is cleaner than most bottled water.

As a matter of fact, Case Western Reserve University found that 18% of bottled water contained more bacteria than allowable by the EPA, in addition to other chemicals found.

Cardiac Damage From Endurance Exercise

From MedPage Today, Dec 6, 2011:

Intense endurance exercise — such as running a marathon — may induce cardiac damage confined to the right ventricle, a small study showed.

Highly trained endurance athletes had reductions in right ventricular function immediately after a race, although it mostly returned to normal about a week later, according to André La Gerche, MBBS, PhD, of the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues.

However, a handful of the athletes had signs of subclinical myocardial scarring on cardiac MRI, “suggesting that repetitive ultra-endurance exercise may lead to more extensive right ventricular change and possible myocardial fibrosis,” the researchers reported online in the European Heart Journal.

Action Points:
* This study of 40 endurance athletes found evidence of right ventricular effects after an endurance event that largely resolved by six to 11 days later.

* Also, no concomitant left ventricular effects were observed.

There were no changes in left ventricular function, which “provides further circumstantial evidence for the emerging concept that the right ventricle may be more susceptible to exercise-induced injury [than the left],” they wrote.

The study included 40 athletes (mean age 37) who were participating in a marathon, an endurance triathlon, an alpine cycling race, or an ultra triathlon. All trained for more than 10 hours a week and had finished in the top quarter of a recent endurance race. None had cardiac symptoms or risk factors.

The researchers evaluated the athletes two to three weeks before the race, immediately after the race, and six to 11 days after the race.

Compared with baseline, right ventricular volumes increased, and all measures of right ventricular function worsened immediately post race. Left ventricular function was unaffected.

Levels of two biomarkers of myocardial injury — cardiac troponin I and B-type natriuretic peptide — significantly increased following the race (P≤0.003 for both). The changes were associated with reductions in right ventricular ejection fraction (P≤0.002 for both), but were unrelated to left ventricular ejection fraction.

Lower right ventricular ejection fraction was significantly associated with longer race duration and increasing peak oxygen uptake (P≤0.011 for both).

By six to 11 days after the race, most measures of right ventricular function had returned to normal, with the exception of right ventricular strain rates, which remained lower.

In the 39 athletes who underwent cardiac MRI, five had delayed gadolinium enhancement confined to the interventricular septum, indicative of subclinical myocardial fibrosis. These athletes had been competing in endurance sports longer and had lower right ventricular ejection fractions compared with those with normal MRI findings.

Because the study was not powered to assess clinical outcomes, the significance of the MRI findings requires further study, according to the authors.

The study “begs the hypothetical question whether repetitive longstanding bouts of arduous exercise result in the development of an acquired form of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy,” Sanjay Sharma, MD, and Abbas Zaidi, MBBS, of St. George’s University of London, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

“The results provide food for thought and the data should be embraced to galvanize more detailed and longitudinal assessment of large groups of endurance athletes,” they wrote. “The potential for such projects is enormous considering the colossal increase in participation rates in endurance events such as the marathon.”

The Happiness Project

We really enjoyed this book and wanted to share it with you. True, Gretchen Rubin, talks about us in her NY Times Bestselling Book, The Happiness Project, which we might add is now in paperback.

She makes a resolution to “Exercise Better” and reveals the importance of exercise as one of the stepping stones toward a happier life. Certainly that is no surprise to any of us here at Inform Fitness or to any of our clients, but she talks about how she has tried strength training and weight training in the past and was never able to stick with it. Then she discovered Inform Fitness and explains how the Power of 10 slow motion method changed her life.

We are thrilled to have another happy client and well, as you can imagine, ecstatic about her sharing it with the world in her book. If you would like more information about The Happiness Project or to buy Gretchen’s book, please visit their website.

Inform Fitness Featured In Marie Claire

We are really excited to share that The Power of 10 Workout was featured in the November 2011 Issue of Marie Claire @ Work.

The article mentions Inform Fitness as one the options for the busy executive who only has a short lunch period to fit in a worthwhile workout. We couldn’t agree more.

You can read the article in our press section or at Marie Claire where they have the full article online.

Breaking Down Barriers and Crossing Borders

Clean Water – Bottle or Tap?

Cardiac Damage From Endurance Exercise

The Happiness Project

Inform Fitness Featured In Marie Claire

We are really excited to share that The Power of 10 Workout was featured in the November 2011 Issue of Marie Claire @ Work.

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