The Kamagon Ball looks like an oversized medicine ball, or an undersized stability ball, with ears.  What’s really different about the Kamagon Ball is that you fill it with water.

The ball has a port on one side that you pour water in to create either 15, 30, or 45 pounds of fluid resistance.  Adding water to the ball introduces a concept they refer to as Hydro Inertia.  Basically that means that the water inside the ball is constantly in motion and you’re body has to work a bit harder to stabilize that unstable source of resistance. 

That added resistance has been shown through research to recruit more muscle fibers than similar static weighted exercises.  Further, the added stabilization required to overcome the water resistance helps protect against injury by forcing you to concentrate more on form and strengthen connective tissue. 

You can use the Kamagon Ball just like you would use a medicine ball or a kettlebell and the variety of exercises is limited only by your imagination.  I’ve been incorporating the Kamagon Ball into different workouts with clients and it’s been a popular addition.  I’ve been using it quite a bit in my own workouts and I’ve come to prefer it over kettlebells and medicine balls. 

When you receive your Kamagon Ball, it includes a brief instruction manual and DVD showing various exercises.  If I have one criticism, I’d say that these two can use some work.  They’re a decent starting point and your challenge from there is to think outside the box and find creative ways to use the Kamagon Ball.

In addition to individual use, the folks at Kamagon Ball have created a series of group fitness programs called Kamagon Kore and Kamagon Sculpt to extend it’s use to group fitness settings. 

Watch the video review below to see a few examples and then watch for a series of videos in the near future highlighting different combinations with the Kamagon Ball.

 Here’s how it works:

It’s a little different from the song.  For this workout you’ll be going in reverse order from the song.  Normally, you’d start at the first day, the small number, and go to the last day, the big number.  For this workout, you’ll start with the twelfth day and go down from there.

For example, you’ll start with twelve repetitions of the first exercise.  Then, you’ll go for twelve of the first exercise again, eleven of the second.  Start over with 12 reps of the first exercise, 11 of the second, and 10 of the third.  Keep repeating just like that until you’ve done all twelve exercises.

As if the Twelve Days of Christmas Workout isn’t challenging enough, you’ll be doing this workout with as little rest as possible and time yourself.  When you’re done you will have completed 520 total reps. 

Now it’s your turn.   You’ll find a list of the exercises below along with a video demonstration.  I completed the series in 50 minutes.  Let me know your time.

Have fun and Merry Christmas!

12 Prisoner squats

11 Stability ball rollouts

10 Mountain climbers (per side)

9 Stability ball exchanges

8 Medicine ball goalies (each leg)

7 Inverted rows

6 Stability ball hamstring curls

5 Dumbbell snatches (each arm)

4 Renegade rows (each arm)

3 Burpees

2 L-sit raises

1 Minute stability ball plank

You won't find your six pack abs here

In search of your own six pack, you spend time on the floor doing endless reps and sets of sit ups and crunches from every direction. You may have even purchased the Ab Roller, Ab Doer, Ab Rocket, Ab Lounge, or some other ab contraption. How’s that working for you?

Let me tell you a secret. We all have six pack abs. They’re just harder to find on some people. Read on because I’m about to help you find yours. Here’s another secret. The answer doesn’t lie in all those contraptions. Even the pieces of abdominal equipment alone at the gym won’t bring out the six pack.

One of the biggest myths in fitness is that of spot reduction. To be blunt, the idea that you can work a specific area of the body with a specific exercise and melt the body fat in that area isn’t true. Now that it’s out in the open, how do you bring out the washboard in you?

First, abs are made in the kitchen. Eat better, move more. Notice I didn’t just say to eat less, although for many people that’s really important too. Instead, you need to eat enough of the right stuff to keep your body fueled, but not so little that your body thinks it’s starving.

The mistake many people on a weight loss journey make is to rely solely on diet and slash their calorie intake to the point your body begins storing energy as fat instead of using it to perform daily functions. When that happens, your metabolism slows, you lose energy, and eventually run out of gas. If you give your car less fuel than it needs what happens? If you give your car cheap low octane gas, what happens. Right, sluggish performance. Your body runs the same way.

Fuel your body with enough quality proteins for muscle growth and rebuilding, carbohydrate for energy, and fats for vitamin transport and hormone production, and you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Next, get the big muscles moving to burn more calories. Let’s go back to the car example. Which uses more fuel: Hummer or a Honda Civic? It takes more fuel to move the big car, so use the same principle with your exercise program. Bicep curls or squats? One exercise uses the little tiny muscles in your arm a nd the other uese the calorie-hogging muscles like the glutes and hamstrings. Those big muscles will bun more calories during the exercise and they have to work harder to recover after the exercise to rebuild. More work equals more calories used.

Now, back to the washboard stomach. With the elimination of the myth of spot reduction we know that sit-ups and crunches aren’t going to do the job. The key is to get rid of the body fat to see that six pack hidden in all of us and the best way to do that is to use more calories. To get you started, here’s a short video showing a four exercise full body complex. If you need more help, I know a good trainer for you.

The Mighty Mackinac Bridge

Of course, I still squeezed in some time for exercise and one morning I was inspired by the Mackinac Bridge.  Mighty Mac connects Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.  At 5 miles long, it’s the third longest total suspension bridge in the world and the longest suspension bridge with two towers in the Western Hemisphere.  A bridge with that length of span has to be strong.

Part of what makes this engineering feat so impressive is the distance between the towers.  A bridge with a shorter span is typically more stable and requires less strength.  A longer span needs to be built stronger.  Thinking about that strength made me consider what happens when you make a plank longer.  A regular plank has you connected to the ground by your feet and forearms.  Today’s video features the Body Bridge, which takes the plank up a notch by separating your anchor points even further from each other. 

Here’s your chance to see if your bridge is as mighty as the Mackinac.  Enjoy!

 
All movement begins at the core.  Many people define the core very narrowly,
thinking of only the abs.  Your core includes your torso and hips which account
for the power center of your body.  For example, each time the batter swings,
their body, and most importantly the hips rotate to drive toward the ball.  A
good pitcher knows that the power comes not from the arm, but instead from
driving off the back leg, followed by bringing the back leg around to close the
hips and planting the foot to be ready to field the ball.  A base runner has to
explode from the base to steal second using the glutes to extend the hips and
power toward the bag.  A shortstop might find herself diving toward third to
snag a ball, stopping, turning, and firing the ball toward first base to get the
out.  That sprint to the left, decelerate, turn and throw all engage the
core.  
 
Before she can develop that much needed strength and power, a player needs to
develop core stability.  To get you started, this week’s column features a video
showing a core stability program to improve your game.  Once you’ve developed
stability, watch for future columns focusing on different exercises to develop
core strength.

Good morning Bolingbrook

I love mornings.  Early mornings.  I get up at half past crazy most days and sometimes earlier.  Yesterday was one of those days.

Usually I’m waking up so I can go train with a client, but yesterday my earliest meeting was at 8 am so I decided to go for an early bike ride.  Fourty-three miles later and I was home having breakfast with my family by 7 am.  Love it!

I noticed something on the ride and I thought about how true it is both outdoors and inside.  Outdoor, you can be a runner, walker, cyclist, whatever, and when you see someone else doing one of those things, we wave to each other.  It’s just a quick acknowledgement that says, “yea, I get it.  I’m part of the club too”.  (The exception is the bullet-helmeted triathletes. Dude, look up from your aero bars and give us a little love. It’s OK, it won’t mess with your training). 

The gym is even friendlier early in the morning.  The 15 or so people who are part of the 5 am club at LifeStyles Fitness Center know eachother by name.  They talk to one another. They care about their friends. They take pride in the place they work out and they pick up after themselves.  As the crowd grows throughout the day and into the evening it’s still friendly, but just a little less personal.  People put on the headphones and tune out to those around them and it doesn’t have quite the same feeling.  The next time you’re in the gym and you find yourself zoning out to all around you and need that personal connection, take a second to acknowledge someone around you and say hello.  You’ll be surprised how it will help you enjoy your workout even more.

If you’re a morning person, come on, join the club! We’re looking forward to seeing you, indoors or out.  We’ll even give you a wave.

I’ve been working on this for quite awhile and I’m excited to finally make this project available to you.  The DVD gives you over 80 videos showing  exercises or varying levels of difficulty in several different categories.  

Unlike most fitness DVDs that give you one or two pre-determined workout programs to follow which quickly become boring and routine, you’ll have the opportunity to mix and match exercises and create hundreds of fun and interesting combinations.  In addition, almost all of the exercises can be performed with a minimal amount of portable equipment that you probably already own!

Because this DVD is different from many that you may have purchased, I want to make sure you know what you’re getting.

Who should buy this DVD?

• If you’d like over 80 exercises in 8 different categories that will allow you to build your own program, this is the DVD for you!
• You’ll love this DVD if you want the freedom to create your program on your own without being restricted to a few exercises.
• You’d like personal instruction on each exercise that you can refer back to forever, you’ve come to the right place.
• You want more fun from your workout programming because you’ll have more exercises to choose from.
• You’ve been wanting more variety to keep your body guessing as to what’s coming next.

Who should not buy this DVD?

• If you’re looking for a pre-defined workout program that you can follow and become tired of in a few short days, this isn’t for you.
• If you’re hoping I’ll give you a promise that you can do only 4 minutes of exercise and have instant six-pack abs, this isn’t right for you either. This DVD is going to require some work to get results.
• Don’t expect the “magic bullet” that will help you burn fat in a specific area of your body by doing a specific exercise. That’s because you can’t. It’s not possible. Your body decides where it takes the fat from, not you or the exercise you choose to do.

I’m offering this DVD for an introductory price of only $47. That’s less than the cost of just one personal training session! Get your copy now!

I’m proud of this project and want you to be pleased as well.  To prove it, I’m offering a 30 day money back guarantee.  If you receive your DVD and feel that you haven’t received at least the value of the low price you’ve paid for it, just tell me and I’ll be happy to refund your money.  Like I said though, I’m confident that the videos in this collection will give you much more value than the low price would suggest.  You’ve got nothing to lose!

I showed them to one of the trainers at LifeStyles and she came up with several more right on the spot. I think we’re on to something here. Maybe I’ll have to do a whole series of workouts called “How to exercise with goofy things around your house”.

Try these 12 exercises as a quick circuit and you’ll find yourself working up a sweat pretty fast. I’ve also included a short video of the exercises below. Pick up a set of sliders, try it out, and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

1. Slide outs
2. Alternating slides
3. Pike
4. Mountain climbers
5. Oblique mountain climbers
6. Jacknife
7. Atomic push up
8. Army crawl
9. Hamstring curls
10. Single leg hamstring curls
11. Reverse lunges
12. Lateral lunges

The current testing involves a push up, sit up, and two-mile run test. While all three are great exercises, none simulates a situation that a soldier would find themselves in on the battlefield. They’re not lacing up the Nikes and going for a two mile jog. Instead, they’re wearing 60 pounds of body armor and other gear while carrying a rifle, ready to fire no less, while running through uneven and hostile terrain. That scenario requires you to be able to do more than a sit up.

In addition to adding agility tests to the “fitness readiness” portion of testing, a “combat readiness” test will also include a 400 meter run carrying a rifle through an obstacle course in full combat gear, and crawling and leaping over obstacles while aiming their rifle. Soldiers also run on a balance beam while carrying a 30-pound ammo box and do an agility sprint around a course of cones. Soldiers must drag a sled weighted with 180 pounds of sandbags to test pulling a fallen team member from the battlefield.

The US military has also been getting pretty progressive with the equipment they’re using the train soldiers. The military recently announced a purchase of 24,000 TRX Suspension Trainers for deployment to all branches of the service. Now each deploying brigade or battallion will have access to a TRX unit.

Functional fitness finally makes it to the US military! Is it time to look at what you’re doing as well? Think about what you do during the day and what you’d like to do from a recreation or sports standpoint. Are the exercises you do in any way supporting functional movement?

For example:

• A flight attendant might find exercises that simulate picking up a suitcase and lifting it overhead to place it into an overhead compartment more beneficial than another 25 reps on the leg adduction machine at their local gym.
• A scuba diver would benefit from exercise to help them lift loaded tanks more than 15 additional minutes of steady state work on the treadmill.
• A basketball player would benefit more from plyometric box jumps than a fifth set of bicep curls.

When it comes down to it, we exercise for a reason. For some it’s purely aesthetic and that’s OK. For most it’s about function. It’s about being able to do things with your body that you either can’t do today, or continue doing what you’re already able to do many years from now.

Where do I start? What should I do? Will I make a fool of myself?

Believe me, these are all questions that have run through the head of nearly every person who starts an exercise program.  You’re not alone.

When first starting an exercise program, make sure you’re cleared to exercise.  Check with your doctor, make sure there’s nothing brewing under the surface.  Once you’re cleared and assuming no restrictions, I recommend incorporating both resistance and cardiovascular exercise, especially if weight loss and/or improving daily function are part of your goals.  Don’t just go to the gym and start lifting heavy stuff though.  With the resistance exercise, it’s very important to make sure your body can support and manage it’s own weight before adding more weight to it.  For most, that means beginning with the core.  Let’s start by defining the core.   Your core is more than your abs.  It’s the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex and all the muscles that attach to it.  It’s the muscles of the chest, upper, middle, and lower back, the spinal extensors, the hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, and yes, your abs.  All movement begins in the core.  The job of the core is to support your body when walking, sitting, or performing any type of movement.   Since it’s job is to support the body, it only makes sense that we stabilize and strengthen the core and allow it to manage your own body weight first. Only then should you start adding external weights.  Below you’ll find several sample videos of exercises designed to activate the core. 

As for your cardio exercise, pick something you enjoy.  My first choice for cardio exercise: Go outside!  Take a brisk walk. Ride a bike.  Indoor options? How about the rowing machine, Stairmaster, Stepmill, Versa Climber, treadmill, or elliptical machine.  

Get your heart rate up and keep it up for the duration of your exercise.  There are lots of formulas out there to tell you where your heart rate should be.  Frankly, most are fiction, based on little science.  A good rule of thumb to use is the Talk Test.  Imagine yourself doing your preferred exercise. Can you still hold a conversation with someone or are you huffing and puffing too hard.  Bring yourself to just below that point where it starts to get difficult to hold a conversation and stay there for the duration of the exercise.  As your fitness develops, you can experiment with other more intense cardio options. 

The important thing here is to take it slow to start and make sure you’re within your limits.  Your cardiovascular system will develop faster than your muscular system, so don’t get ahead of yourself and ramp your exercise up too quickly.  I see a lot of people who start an exercise program and they jump in with both feet.  While enthusiasm is great, they hop off the couch and immediately start with a 3 mile run or an hour on the treadmill.  They do this for a couple of days, they’re still feeling fine, so they double their efforts thinking they’ll get results faster.  Instead, stuff starts to hurt and they end up quitting.

If you’re just off the couch and just starting your cardio exercise program, start with 20-30 minutes at a reasonable pace.  Do this for a couple weeks and begin to increase gradually.  You’ll be less likely to get injured and more likely to see better long-term results.  Long term results is what you’re after, right!

Remember, you didn’t get to where you are in a week and you’re not going to get to your goals in a week either.  Make smart choices and give it the right time and you’ll see success.

With that in mind, here are a few great exercises that can get you started and help activate the core.   Don’t forget to leave a comment below!

Functional warm-up sequence

Swimmer

Rowing crunches

Bird dog

Stability ball rollout

Plank

5 Medicine Ball Exercises You Need to Know