erinnmorgann’s BodyBlog

We all know there is A LOT of misinformation out there. I could write volumes on all the ridiculous things I have heard from clients on dieting, weightloss, lifting, etc, and you see it all the time as well. But you can’t blame the general public for believing what they hear or read, we all do it and probably all of us believed a lot of things we now know aren’t true when we first started out.

Therefore, it is the duty of fitness professionals to dig for the truth, and do our best to inform the public with the truth. There are are no magic pills, that quick fixes will not work the rest of their lives, and that exercise is good and skipping breakfast is bad and so on and so forth. Currently I am a personal trainer, and I am working on a degree in Kinesiology with a minor in nutrition-so I work with professionals in the kines field everyday, as well as students. Well today, one of my clients called me to tell me that one of her friends, a fellow kines major of mine, told her that LIFTING WEIGHTS WAS BAD and that she should be doing JUST CARDIO, EVERYDAY, FOR OVER AN HOUR EACH DAY. An exercise science student said this. Not even a freshman, but a junior. Now it’s one thing for the average once or twice a week exerciser to go around spreading the misinformation they heard or read about, they won’t do much damage there, but someone who is about to enter into the professional field of fitness should REALLY know what they’re talking about before they start saying things like that. WEIGHTLIFTING IS BAD!? WTF!!?? It’s GOOD FOR YOU OMG. She told MY CLIENT that she was concerned that she lifts 4-5 days a week. And my client does cardio too, it’s not like she only lifts. She’s dedicated, she eats well, and she looks fantastic. The misinformer, sometimes does 80 minutes on the treadmill, doesn’t ever lift, and then goes and eats mexican food with her friends. I guess that’s what she calls balance.

Luckily, my client knew that this girl was feeding her BS, and called to tell me how ridiculous this girl was being. Someone doing exercise science should know that even ANY kind of physcial activity is better than nothing. A fitness professional should never discourage anyone from getting physical activity no matter what kind it is, unless there’s like a huge health risk or something but that’s definitely not the case here.

My point is, misinformation is out there and most of us on here are qualified to correct that misinformation, and we should in the appropriate way and only if we really know what we’re talking about. Personally, if someone asks me a question and I’m not sure about the answer, I’m not going to make something up on the spot. I’ll do my research and make sure I have a truthful, solid, proven answer before I go telling someone something false. It would make me look bad as a trainer (and soon-to-be strength and conditioning coach! ), and it could lead to harmful habits of those receiving the misinformation.

Thanks, I just had to vent about that!

Sorry I didn’t get to finish this one earlier.. 

My boyfriend’s parents actually think I don’t eat. The other night I was over there and they asked if I wanted some queso and I politely declined because I had just had a nice CLEAN meal of brown rice and steak and veggies. They questioned whether or not I was telling the truth-if I had in fact, eaten. I’m trying to GAIN muscle-thanks, I just prefer to do it while eating CLEAN, not your QUESO CON SATURATED FAT thanks. I can’t help that I’m skinny and I really do want to put on good weight! Then I almost blocked the TV by walking in front of it so I quickly got out of the way, and his mom was like, "It’s okay you’re to skinny to block anything!" JEEZ thanks. I know I’m little, and it was great for college cheerleading but now that I’m trying to put on muscle…QUIT CALLING ME TOO SKINNY!

I picked a contest for 2009…so now it’s all about putting on muscle! I have A LOT of time to prepare, and I’m going to need it because I do not put on any kind of weight easily! But what better time to try than the holiday season!? Lucky for me I have really easy classes this semester, so I have plenty of time to work out, and lots of recovery time. So for the next few months it’s all about putting on a good amount of muscle, something I definitely have not tried to do before..

So any recommendations and advice out there about competing and muscle building…especially from other girls..would be great! I’m so excited to do my first competition and I want to be really well prepared. I bodyspace-stalk girl’s profiles all the time to see what supplements and brands of protein people are taking and liking. I like mine alright but I like to switch it up every time it’s time to get some new stuff.

Diet is one thing I am on the ball about. I’ve had a lot of nutritional training in school as a nutrition minor, and I know my diet is right where it needs to be for this process. Soon (January-ish) I’m going to get a trainer to take me all the way to competition. If ya’ll know trainers in North Texas I’d love recommendations for those too!

That’s all for now! Time to go lift…shoulders and calves today yaaaaayyyy

So, my dad, his girlfriend, and myself are all fitness fanatics. We work out together on weekends and leave my sister in bed till noon. This is not how we prefer to do it. We have TRIED numerous times to get her active, without any success. She’s slightly overweight, and absolutely sedentary. I can’t for the life of me, get her into a workout program. I have talked with her about it, tried to figure out what her aversion is,  without much good feedback to establish an easy, starting off point. It makes it difficult that I only see her once about every week or two, since we go to different universities. What’s worse, is she just turned 21, and I’ll bet most of you can agree that the months after you reach drinking age, were not your fittest or healthiest. I fear she’s just going to keep gaining and getting unhealthier from here. She says her aversion to working out comes from bad experiences in high school, hating the type of conditioning she had to do. So I said I would tailor workouts she would enjoy. But still she comes up with excuses not to work out…I approached it from a health standpoint…and filled her in on what happens when you choose a sedentary lifestyle..so she changed her eating habits a bit, and parks farther from school, but still doesn’t hit the gym or get enough regular exercise.

WHAT DO I DO!? I have retreated from my efforts, and I currently I am just sitting back until she sees a picture or her reflection and realizes how big she’s actually getting. I figure I’m not going to be able to help if she doesn’t want it…but I want to make her want it! She has all the resources at her fingertips! I am a friggin personal trainer and an extremely knowledgeable source and I can get that extra 30 pounds of fat off her in 6 months if she would just WANT me to. So the reason I’m writing about this is I need help. Anyone have any ideas on how I can get my sedentary sister to want to change her body, her health, her lifestyle? What worked for you? Should I just keep waiting it out…?

I’m seriously obsessed with gaining size in my calves and delts, as I said two days ago in my first post. So I searched on bodybuilding.com for a new calf routine, as mine was sort of working, but getting stale. I found one that sounded nothing like what I have been doing, and tried it out this morning and LOVED it!! It was a total shocker to my calves for sure, the burn was fantastic. Basically, you perform one calf exercise, using the weight you would use for a 20-rep set. I picked unilateral standing calf raises. Then you knock out the 20 reps…and continue for as many as you can. When you can’t do anymore, you take a break, stretch em, and let them quit burning, then knock out as many more as you can..all the way to 75 reps. And that’s it. I think my calves will be SORE tomorrow. It said it takes two minutes…but NOT the first time, took me more like 10 minutes (then again, I trained one leg at a time). I also did bis and tris, another area I would like to gain some size in, but isn’t currently a huge focus, that’ll come in time..

So I just wanted to share my excitement over my new calf routine…I’m getting rid of these bird legs for sure!!

I love blogging about fitness! I do it all the time on my myspace page, and now I’m excited to blog about it on here because everyone on here actually cares about fitness!

To start with, I had a bad week of little working out and not great eating, so I’m getting back on track today (yes, on a Friday). I’m not big on going out and partying anyways, even though I’m in college, I’m over it. So I have a whole week until I have bare my abs, arms, and legs in a tiny little cheer uniform again for next week’s homecoming game at my college, and I plan on hitting the gym every day until then and eating super-well so I can be a tad more defined than I was yesterday in that thing. Plus, Halloween is coming up and I’m so going to dress up as an American Gladiator! So excited, be ready for those pics to be put on here!

I’ve got about four more weeks of football season and tiny cheer uniforms and being thrown in the air by skinny guys, and then I can start trying to pack on the muscle again! I’m a tiny girl, naturally a twig and a hard gainer, but I successfully put on a few pounds of muscle over the summer and I’m looking forward to doing it again!

Today I got in a bit of upper-body lifting and some cardio, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow working on my hard-to-build areas: my delts and calves. I HAVE THE SKINNIEST CALVES EVER. They have shown a little more size with religious training, but progress is slow! I could use some help on those!! My delts also refuse to get bigger. I want some round, full shoulders! Trust me I do heavy weight, low reps…carbs and protein after…I figure if I continue doin what I’m doin they’ll come around!

That’s where I’m at for now! Happy Training All!!

"If you TRAIN hard, not only will you BE hard, but you’ll be hard to BEAT" <all-time FAVORITE quote