Customer Testimonial:
Why Strength Training is Good for almost anyone
Strength training has been
scientifically proven to help increase bone
mass, increase flexibility, improve balance, and
assist in burning stored fat. Check out Miriam
Nelson’s great book: Strong Women, Stay Young
(Bantam Books, 1997) which outlines her research
on female nursing home patients and their
documented progress through strength training.
You are never too old to start!
As we age, it is essential to
keep moving, and strength training makes it
easier to move! The adage “if you don’t use it,
you lose it” is very true. I watched my
parents-in-law lose their mobility by not
exercising when they retired, and I watched my
father keep his mobility (until his death at age
94) by using hand and leg weights faithfully for
20 years. My father had both of his knees
replaced at the same time at the age of 87 (the
doctors operated because he had such good muscle
tone in his legs), and he was back on the golf
course 6 weeks later. He played golf regularly
until the age of 92. He took no medications on a
regular basis. My parents-in-law spent the last
years of their lives in wheelchairs taking a
raft of pills. Science is showing that genes
play a big role in aging, but strength training
can enhance your natural good aging genes or
counterbalance your poor aging genes. Maybe in a
few years they’ll be able to tell us what kind
of aging genes we have, but until they do,
strength training is the best option for a
better quality of life as we age.
Why Strength Training is
Good for Women
Strength training will not
give you the appearance of a body builder, with
grotesquely enlarged muscles. Strength training
will help you prevent osteoporosis, which can be
a devastatingly painful and debilitating
illness. My mother suffered terribly from stress
fractures of her spine due to osteoporosis and
spent three months in a nursing home in
excruciating pain. Strength training will help
your overall sense of health and well being.
Strength training will help you become trim,
perhaps even drop a dress size or two, without
necessarily losing weight (since muscle weighs
more than fat), but you’ll certainly look
better.
Why Strength Training is
Essential for Me
Three years ago I suffered a
very serious knee injury, breaking the major
weight-bearing bone of the knee, tearing my ACL,
and tearing my meniscus. It was the third major
injury to the same knee, which already had a
fair amount of osteoarthritis in it. I could not
put any weight on the injured leg for 7 weeks,
as the bone break had to heal before I could
have reconstructive surgery on the ACL. I was on
crutches for 5 months. All I could do was watch
while I lost all of the muscles in my leg from
my hip to my foot. I spent 12 months in physical
therapy re-learning how to walk, and then the
next two years doing very restricted exercises
on my own given to me by my orthopedic surgeon.
With those exercises and the exercises outlined
in Miriam Nelson’s book, I felt I had maxed out
on what I could do by myself (I had gone from
leg pressing 10 pounds to pressing 300.), and I
felt that I had neglected the rest of my body
while I was working so hard on regaining muscle
strength in my leg. There was still a
considerable discrepancy between the strength of
my “good” leg and my “injured” leg.
Six months ago I turned 50
and had days when I felt I was 60, despite
taking a yoga class once a week. Three months
ago I started strength training with Armand at
CBC, and now most of the time I feel at least 10
years younger than I am. Armand designed a
program tailored around a host of physical
issues I have. The program continues to evolve
as I gain in strength. I consider myself a
pretty active person, but strength training has
helped be to be even more active. I shoveled
snow last weekend for two hours and didn’t ache
at all the next day. I was really aware of the
increased muscle power in my legs, which greatly
took the strain off my back. A month ago, we
were trying to hoist a very heavy canoe on top
of my husband’s car. My two teenaged kids were
struggling trying lift the canoe up over their
heads. I found it to be a “piece of cake” thanks
to the shoulder and arm exercises I’ve been
doing.
I’ve always been tall and
fairly thin. I love to cook, and I love to eat.
However, after I turned 45 and started to enter
pre-menopause, the pounds started to slowly
accumulate. I wasn’t having much success with
dieting, because I don’t enjoy depriving myself.
But I’ve noticed recently that I can fit into
some pants that used to be too tight. The
strength training is re-setting my metabolism.
I’m eating what I want and not gaining.
I definitely am looking and
feeling better. My kids had told me I was
getting some “old lady” sag under my arms. That
has just about completely disappeared. My arms
look how they used to when I was younger. Armand
is helping me to strengthen my weak leg. I can
see more quad developing—something I couldn’t
make happen on my own.
Why Strength Training with
Armand is Great
Generic exercises can’t
target specific areas in an individual that need
strengthening. Doing these exercises involves
correct form to avoid injury and to get the
maximum benefit from the exercise. You need
someone watching and guiding you. Armand really
knows what he is doing. He has great exercises
to give you, some involving machines, some that
you can do anywhere. He has great stretches.
He’s very good at explaining the form involved
in an exercise. He’s very attentive to gradually
increasing the level of challenge. He varies the
routines we do so that I don’t get bored. Armand
is a very interesting person—he’s done a lot of
different things in his life—so he’s fun to talk
to, which makes workout time pass quickly. He’s
very supportive and encouraging. Armand is
always pleasant and seems to be in a positive,
upbeat mood—that can be catching, and I always
feel better after I work out than I do before I
start.
I juggle a lot of roles in my
life, and sometimes it is hard to take time for
myself. By making an appointment with Armand,
I’m accountable to someone else, I’ve scheduled
in exercise, I have an ally, a coach, a helper
in my quest to improve my fitness. If I don’t
call Armand, he’ll call me to make sure I’m
scheduled for something. He helps keep me at it.
I
didn’t think I could make the amount of progress
that I have in 3 months. I owe it all to Armand.
--Sally Sanford © 2003 Reprints only by
permission of the author.
Return to List of Testimonials |
