Work Our For Free Today And Tomorrow At 92Y May Center
Has your New Year’s resolution to hit the gym faltered a bit? Ease back into it today and tomorrow at 92nd Street Y during The Perfect Fit, a two-day free fitness event at the 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport. Check out our fitness classes, mini training sessions with the pros and so much more! Read more and register here.
92Y NYC Half Marathon Runners Achieve Great Results!
Video highlights from the 2011 NYC Half Marathon
Looking at 92nd Street Y running team’s race results from Sunday’s NYC Half Marathon makes us equally thankful for their fundraising efforts to benefit the 92Y Youth Scholarship fund, as well as impressed with their race times. Almost all the runners who received complimentary pre-race coaching from 92Y May Center trainers ranked above the 50 percent mark for world-class speed when adjusted for their ages. We consider their performances strong testimony showing people across all age groups can make remarkable physical achievements.
An example of taking personal performance to the next level is Joseph Vento, whose maximum running distance prior to training for the Half Marathon was three miles on a treadmill. Nine weeks later, Vento not only completed the 13.1-mile urban race course, he turned in a respectable 2:06:34 race time. Garth Johnson, a 92Y May Center trainer who worked with the running team, beamed with pride: “It’s a great feeling to help others achieve their goals. Their bodies are at a level of fitness where they can achieve new and more ambitious fitness goals, if they choose to do so.”
Experiencing dramatic gains in physical performance takes time. Cliff Turner, another May Center trainer who worked with the 92Y running team, advises anyone who would like to follow Vento’s example to start small and gradually add distance over an extended time period. “Adding a mile every one or two weeks will yield positive results,” says Turner. “However, adding more than two miles per week can be counter-productive.”
Once again, many thanks and congratulations to our runners! See the race results for each 92Y race team member, and visit this page to learn how to interpret the results.
As we’ve written before, 92nd Street Y is as a Charity Partner in the NYC Half Marathon happening this weekend on March 20 and sponsored our first ever race team. Our team of 12 runners worked really hard, raising almost $25,000 for the May Center’s Youth Sport Scholarships and training with our May Center trainers for two months. The funds will be used to provide Youth Sports Scholarships to needy families as a way to support healthy life styles.
For those of you who plan to cheer on friends and loved ones in the race and for those of you who live on the race course, we hope that you will look for the 92Y runners wearing our logo shirts and cheer them on! View the course map in PDF form.
As well, for the first time in its five year history, the NYC Half will broadcast live on the NYRR website. In addition to the race day broadcast, New York Road Runners Live and New York Road Runners Daily Cool Down begins on Thursday March 17 and will preview all of the action. This will be shown at tv.nyrr.org. You can also check out NYRR Live Video for more details.
Be sure to come out and cheer for the runners this Sunday, or watch the action streamed live. You can also track the runners online, through email or by text.
The Obamas’ Fitness Secret Revealed: Meet Their Trainer
An article in The New York Times today offers a glimpse of how personal trainer Cornell McClellan (seen above at right) helps President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama maintain their chiseled physiques. The results achieved are apparently so good, other White House staffers have signed up for training sessions with McClellan, in some cases at the President’s urging. Former Presidential advisor David Axelrod lost 25 pounds through McClellan’s training sessions while Michael Strautmanis, President Obama’s deputy assistant, became 20 pounds lighter.
Are these results the anecdotes of celebrity lore or can the rest of us achieve the same kinds of results through personal training? “It’s not about celebrity, it’s about consistency,” says Garth Johnson, a personal trainer for the 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport. “You need to be consistent in performing your workouts, maintaining good eating habits and getting a proper amount of rest.” Johnson added that he has clients who have realized demonstrable weight loss through personal training, as well as experiencing improved motor skills and agility.
Personal training provides value to fitness enthusiasts in the way they are safely coached to reach new levels of conditioning. “All good athletes get in shape through the use of a coach or trainer. Everyday people need the same push to reach goals which have been considered hard to reach. That’s where a trainer comes in,” Johnson said.
92Y personal training and sports instruction helps fitness enthusiasts or full and part-time athletes achieve new levels of conditioning for virtually any physical activity.
Welcome To New York Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups
92nd Street Y welcomes the newest additions to the NY Knicks, Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, to the Big Apple. Their performance against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night confirms our belief that basketball in this town is about to change in a big way.
Perhaps Melo and Chauncey can follow the steps of former Knicks stars Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Hubert Davis and drop by the 92Y Lane Gym to check out our game. Hey, they can schlepp Amar’e with them. Joakim Noah and Jamal Mashburn found plenty of action here in their younger years.
Father Daughter Team Runs the Half-Marathon For 92Y
Dan Lacoff (center) undertaking a running drill with (l-r) 92Y trainer Garth Johnson, 92Y running team members Joe Vento and Rebecca Epstein, 92Y trainer Cliff Turner.
Father and daughter Dan and Alllison Lacoff are two of 13 volunteers who answered our call to represent 92Y in the NYC Half-Marathon. Dan and Allison ran together in a JCC 10K race last year but the upcoming March 20 race will be the first time they will take on a half-marathon as a duo. The Lacoffs have raised over $5,200 for the 92Y-designated youth scholarship fund, and their efforts places them far beyond their individual fundraising objectives of $1,800.
Participating in his first road race in 2005 at the age of 46 makes Dan a relative newcomer to the world of running, but he’s been hooked ever since. In contrast, Allison made running a part of her personal regimen since her days as an undergraduate at Schenectady’s Union College, which also happens to be her parents’ Alma Mater.
Dan recalls his experiences in coaching little league teams and Allison’s summers where she worked as a camp counselor as motivators for joining the 92Y running team. “We have always been involved closely with Jewish organizations and the fact that they were raising money for their Youth Sports Scholarship program and benefiting children, made it quite appealing for both of us.”
Dan and Allison refuse to rest on their fundraising laurels and continue to collect donations through their Crowdrise pages, one for Dan and one for Allison.
“Raw Food” Vegetable Roll /Photo Credit: herwin/Flickr
Raw foodists believe that foods exposed to cooking temperatures in excess of 112 degrees Fahrenheit will lose living enzymes and other compounds considered to be crucial to aiding digestion, boosting energy levels and fighting diseases. Eating raw food has grown in popularity in recent years and some have elevated the diet to the level of fine dining.
The Jewish Week visited the 92nd Street Y May Center to check out a hot, new fitness class, DrumCore™ – and it was love at first sight, of drumsticks and stability balls:
Lesley Younge, a math teacher at the Dalton School, and another DrumCore enthusiast, says that the class provides a much-needed release after a stressful day. “You can pound out all of the day’s frustrations,” says Younge, who also enjoys the “interesting patterns” that Sharp introduces, and says that “you really feel your heart rate go up.”
Developed by Sharp, DrumCore draws from a fitness phenomenon called Drums Alive, which, while still unusual in New York City, has been reverberating around the world over the last decade or so. Sharp modeled his class after Drums Alive, but added a series of core-building exercises on the ball, which follow the drumming component of his classes. “It’s more of a work-out than people would imagine,” says Sharp, who first learned about Drums Alive at a fitness conference in 2005.
According to the FDA, despite fiber being present in a wide variety of fruits, grains and vegetables, most Americans do not consume a sufficient amount of fiber. Getting fiber into our diets has not become any easier these days, since our consumption of processed foods – which typically have significantly less fiber – continues to increase.
This is unfortunate. In addition to weight loss, fiber has been recommended as an important part of several wellness strategies, including internal waste removal, colon health and cholesterol management.
The 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport will give the race team members rock star treatment by providing free or discounted access to nutrition counseling, personal training, acupuncture treatment, physical therapy sessions and gym membership in preparation for the big race.
14 runners with a broad range of backgrounds and running abilities answered 92Y’s recruitment call so far. Rebecca Epstein told us: “I am running in my first Half Marathon to inspire other people to exceed their preconceived limitations. This run is in memory of my parents.” And Kevin L. Lam said: “I’ve been a fighter of health issues during childhood. I am running to promote the importance of physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle among teens.”
Personal Trainers Garth Johnson and Cliff Turner will work with the runners and administer a conditioning program designed by Dave Schmeltzer, Director of the May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport. Personal Training Coordinator David Simmons will manage the conditioning program.
A limited number of 92Y team member slots remain; sign up here!
The Kiddushin tractate of the Talmud, a compilation of Jewish law and lore, tells us that fathers (as well as mothers and guardians in a more contemporary sense) are obligated to teach their children to swim among the other vital life skills children must acquire, such as learning Torah or a trade. Beyond moral and parental obligations, learning to swim is fun and can be beneficial to our bodies, not to mention possessing the ability to swim can save lives, including our own.
So why do we live in an age where more children are likely to understand how to use a smartphone but not know how to swim? Fear of water, or aquaphobia, is often cited as one of the principal reasons why children and adults cannot swim. The 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport recognizes the importance of swimming as a life skill, and has partnered with Jeff Krieger of Strategies for Overcoming Aquatic Phobias (SOAP) to deliver a 92Y May Center program called Water Fear Wash Away for adults and children. Water Fear Wash Away’s goal is to help program participants manage their anxieties when around water to make learning to swim an enjoyable experience. As a recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics showed, it’s apparently never to early too learn. Moreover, it’s never too late for adults.
As the health and fitness world mourns the loss of Jack LaLanne – who passed away at the age of 96 over the weekend, we want to reflect on LaLanne’s advocacy of exercise, fitness centers and healthy eating decades before they became the focus of nationwide marketing campaigns. As a matter of fact, according to The New York Times, LaLanne claimed when he opened his first spa in 1936: “The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.”
LaLanne’s healthy lifestyle enabled him to maintain an impressive physique into his senior years. His example should remind all of us about the tremendous benefits we can reap from diet and exercise.
OK, so you’ve made your New Year’s resolution. Are you ready for Kettlebells? The workout is over a century old, and is considered one of the most effective no-gimmicks approaches to developing lean, powerful muscles and cardiovascular endurance.
Russia’s legendary strongmen have used kettlebells since the 1700s and kettlebell strength competitions were elevated to the status of a Russian national sport by the 1940’s. Martial artists, actors, law enforcement personnel and fitness enthusiasts also include kettlebells in their fitness programs. As a matter of fact, you come to the May Center Open House tonight and do kettlebell drills from 6-8 pm with trainers. The first 50 people who join the 92Y May Center at our Fitness Open House will receive $400 off* membership plus three complimentary months!
So what are the benefits of kettlebells? They offer a number of benefits over traditional weights and popular resistance machines:
Keeping Your New Year’s Health & Fitness Resolution – 92Y May Center Members Speak Out
Inside the Cardio Court at 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport
You made a New Year’s resolution to get in shape. Now what?
Studies show less than half of all people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions after six months, so your odds for realizing your health and fitness goals by June of next year might be 50-50 at best. So the challenge is, how do you make sure you are in the right 50%?
Maintaining the motivation to make your New Year’s health and fitness resolution a reality is just as important as the diet and exercise required to achieve it. To that end, we asked a few members of the 92Y May Center for Health, Fitness & Sport what motivates them to work out. Perhaps what they have to say can help you achieve your fitness goals in 2011:
Put One Foot In Front Of The Other: Join The NYC Half-Marathon 92Y Race Team
Video from the 2010 half-marathon
Whose running the NYC Half-Marathon next March?! We’ll see you there! 92nd Street Y is an official Charity Partner of the NYC Half-Marathon. The 92Y race team will be raising funds on behalf of 92Y Youth Sports Scholarship Fund, which provides Youth Sports Scholarships to children whose families can not afford for them, to participate in programs designed to build healthy lifestyles. All of our runners will benefit from twice weekly runs, free gym membership, training tips and more. Learn about joining our race team.
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