Spring Cleaning

For your diet, house  and fitness routine

Happy Spring… Cleaning

Happy Spring TOA community! We love spring as it brings fresh growth to the land and the promise of sunshine. It also brings a sense of new beginnings and with that the urge to clean out the old; the house, the old diets, and the old fitness routines.

So, let’s talk about spring cleaning; the benefits, the areas and the tips to make it last all year long.

YOUR HOME

Clutter around the house has been shown to increase stress and internal turmoil leading to a mind that is not very calm. If we cannot calm our minds, we cannot fully rejuvenate at the end of the day.

A tip I once heard was never leave a room without taking something to put away. Having kids, this is always on the table as a possibility. Their stuff spreads like wildfire. If you are heading to another room, you might as well put something away. Procrastination is another reason our homes become cluttered; so...

Improving Your Heart Health

In the month of love

Happy love month!

In this house we really take each day to share our love and gratitude; so, Valentine’s Day and the month of love are not really on the docket. But we will totally take this month to reassess our hearth health and cardiovascular endurance.

Let’s chat about cardiovascular health, what it is, what it implies and how to make it better!

Cardiovascular health is measure by your resting heart rate, blood pressure and your heart rate recovery after exercise. Please note, this article is not meant to diagnosis or treat any conditions, please reach out to your doctor for any concerns. 

Resting Heart Rate

Your true resting heart rate is right when you wake up, before you even move or sit up. This is very hard to measure because, I mean you’d have to roll over to grab your watch to start counting. So, we can simply sit down, feet uncrossed, for a few minutes taking some slow breaths. Then by...

New Year Goals

Are they worth making?

Happy New Year!

It is a new calendar year, and we are all starting fresh. Or are we?

We often take this time, the turning of a calendar year, to set new goals to make resolutions,

long lists of things to achieve in the new year. The question remains if this is even worth it, as

many of us never make it past the first month with goals still in hand. So is it? Are setting new

goals at the turning of the calendar worth it?

I flip flop back and forth, as ANY TIME is a great time to re-evaluate and set new goals. Why

wait for the year to change? If we are committed to making a change, start today! Any day! As

action today is better than a plan for tomorrow. But in the end, I do make New Year goals,

they might not be what you’re thinking though.

I start very typically, making a list either on paper or in my head of what I want to accomplish

this next year, what I want my life to look like at the end of the year. The list...

12 Days of Health

Making it through the holidays.

The holidays have hit us full swing and for some reason they all revolve around food! I mean is anything really better than a homemade pie? No, so, I totally get it. But how are we ever going to survive the holiday season without gaining weight from the food or the missed workouts due to all the extra scheduled holiday events?

We have out together some easy steps for you to follow to add to your toolbelt during the holiday season. 

1. Prioritize your workouts. Sounds simple, but when we get busy, we often give up the things that take more effort and energy and convince ourselves we need to “rest”. Let me be the first to tell you that is FALSE! Your workout will energize you through the day, it will pump up your body and push it along. By foregoing your workout, your body slows and enters the slug stage, were it moves extremely slow.
2. Take a walk, a weighted walk. When you start feeling stressed about the holidays...

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Everything in your life is connected.

We all know the song Head Shoulders Knees and Toes as a silly way for our toddlers to learn the basic parts of the body. But let’s take this song and apply it to life. Does it still work? Is everything really all connected?

As we approach this holiday season missing one of our major players in our family; Robert’s father Richard, we are starting to get a little sadder, a little more nostalgic. We’re also a bit achier, some old ailments are starting to flare up. Could this be connected, a coincidence or maybe simply the cooler weather?

Stress is looming in us all, at varying levels. Put there by the challenges of life and cleared away by our positive healthy routines of eating right, exercising and meditating. When routines slip, emotions are left un-checked and your mental and physical stress begins to build and your body starts manifesting disease.

 Stress is the biggest pre-curser...

Fall is Finally Here!

But that doesn’t mean, we need to start falling!

Welcome to October, it’s Fall Prevention Month at TOA

Fall prevention is just one aspect of the training we do here at TOA, albeit a BIG one. We work on it daily; you might not notice, but daily we do. Every year one, or more, of our clients is likely to take a fall. Luckily, all have recovered and are back in the gym kicking butt. Why? Because we train for fall prevention.

“It never says: Fall Prevention on the board, are we really training for that?”

The answer is YES!

We have many tricks up our sleeves when accomplishing this goal but our favorite sneaky three exercises to help you lower your fall prevention risk are the kickstand RDL, the goblet drop squat and drop step lunges.

The kickstand RDL is one of my favorites. I can go heavy and boy do I feel the glutes the next day! In this movement, we are able to reach deeper into the hinge, training the muscles deep within our...

The Biggest Bang for Your Buck

Which exercise should be your bread and butter?

There are so many “great” exercises TOA programs. How could we ever choose a “favorite”? ;-)

Well, let’s be honest, there are a lot of favorite exercises; but, in choosing one specifically, we look for: functionality, the most strength produced and the amount of muscular recruitment.

For this we choose the SIT-TO-STAND. Yes, I know it’s your favorite too. We love the 150 sit to stand test, it’s our favorite.

The sit-to-stand is our bread and butter at TOA. There is a version of it in almost every workout.  This lift is by far the most functional. Let’s think about how, many times a day we sit down and stand up. For starters, you get out of bed and unless you’re a ninja and leaping up to start your day, you’re probably doing a sit-to-stand out of bed. Check, there’s one! Then you use the restroom, and maybe sit down to eat your...

When is it time to quit?

How much pain is too much?

“Ouch! My knee hurts! I think I should stop this workout and just rest.”

With so many joints, muscles, bones and all the connective tissues, we are bound to have some aches, pains and even some injuries. When these arise our first reaction is usually to STOP and rest. Maybe sit the workout or even week out, resting our pains.

When is it right to rest and when do we need to modify and push through?

At TOA we have a 2 and done rule. If an exercise is hurting, we make two modifications to work with the limitation. If that doesn’t work and the exercise pain persists. Then we scratch that ONE exercise. Only if the majority of exercises are hurting do we stop for the day and start again fresh with a new plan.

After all, we train WITH our limitations not AROUND them.

That’s easy enough and straight forward. However, how do we get through mentally? To let you in on some personal information, I have a knee...

Freedom… to Choose Your Workout

Not All Workouts Are Created Equal

We are halfway through the year and we are celebrating our nations birthday this month on the 4^th of July. 247 years young. Living in America comes with a lot of freedoms. The freedom of speech, the freedom of love and the freedom to pursue happiness. The best freedom of all, of course, is the freedom to choose your workout program!

You’re here at TOA for a reason. Maybe it is because you love your coach (we sure hope so!); maybe because you had a friend that trained at TOA; maybe it is located close to home or work. But there is one thing you all have in common… you’re still here, believing in TOA and working it each day at the gym.

TOA uses a specific method developed by our fearless leader, Robert Linkul, to take advantage of movement patterns and progressions. He has created a unique program design allowing us all to move forward WITH our limitations not AROUND them. Guiding us...

Welcome! Dr. Evan Osar and Robert Linkul are bringing you a webcast on the latest fitness topics. Check out episode one: The Biggest Loser, Hugh Jackman, the NFL and of course fitness!