The Perfect Workout Blog

Initially skeptical about about the efficacy of slow-motion strength training, after seeing great results, Joan now crows, “The Perfect Workout is perfect. It’s been three years since I was this small.”

Over the hill at 50? Hardly. Joan Morabito knew she was getting in great shape after joining The Perfect Workout. The weight was coming off, clothes were fitting looser, and she could now do things like lift the car carrier on top of her car. Getting compliments from a couple of teenagers was the icing on the cake. One of her daughter’s friends noticed after not seeing Joan for a while. “Mrs. Morabito, you look so skinny!” Her daughter added, “Oh my gosh! Your legs. Wow, Mom, that’s amazing.”

It’s especially satisfying considering what she’s gone through. Born with a hole in her heart that never closed up, Joan was vacationing in Colorado ten years ago when a blood clot caused a stroke. For a few years it slowed her down, and her balance is still a little off, but most people wouldn’t notice anymore.

In spite of getting past that hurdle, Joan got frustrated going to the gym. She really doesn’t like working out, found it too distracting, and with four kids, rarely had enough time to get there on a regular schedule. She came to The Perfect Workout last February with some hesitation. “I didn’t think I’d like it that much, and didn’t think I’d get such quick results,” says Joan.

The initial doubts quickly washed away. “The Perfect Workout is perfect. There are no distractions. It’s 20 minutes I get to focus completely on me. That’s what I need, to be completely focused on it.” Her trainer at the Memorial studio (in Houston), Rebekah, is super-positive, encouraging, and knowledgeable. “I love it! Rebekah is focused on me, and tells me exactly what I need to be doing. I trust her. I never got that kind of attention at a gym before. I want to do my best for myself, but for her, too.”

Joan’s commitment to her twice-a-week workouts, along with a change in eating habits, has paid off big-time. She lost about seven pounds before coming to The Perfect Workout, and 32 more pounds since. And while she’s lost inches everywhere and had to buy new clothes, she’s even more excited about her strength gains. “I’m definitely stronger all over. My daughter couldn’t believe it – I’m doing almost 300 pounds on the leg press. And my husband loves that I’m going to The Perfect Workout. It’s been three years since I was this small.” Last year Joan was lucky to get to her previous gym two or three times a month.

Now? “I can’t wait for Monday and Thursday mornings to come! I guard those times.” In 2015 she has a goal to get down to a size 8 at every store she shops at, continue building strength, and buy a nicer swimsuit next summer. For anyone else who’s frustrated with working out like she was, Joan has simple advice. “Go try it! Give it a try for three months. I’ll bet you after a couple weeks you’ll kick yourself that you didn’t do it earlier.”

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, football participation in California and Texas has increased steadily for years…until the last two years. Football participation is decreasing in many states over the last two years. This is hardly a surprise. The last few years have also featured numerous stories about NFL players suffering torn anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL), concussions, and there was a lawsuit where former NFL players sued the league over inadequate warning for concussion risk.

In the 2011-2012 school year, there were nearly 1.4 million estimated sports-related injuries in high schools across the United States (according to the National High School-Related Sports Injury Surveillance Study). While football led the way, sports such as soccer, basketball, and wrestling also produce tens of thousands of injuries per year. How do we protect our kids from athletic injuries? How can we make sports safer?

In addition to looking at changes within the sports themselves, we can also properly prepare the participants. Strength training has demonstrated a clear ability to reduce injury risk for young athletes in research. A review of research from the Journal of Sports Medicine mentioned seven studies with high school athletes that found that a strength training program reduced injury rates in various sports. This is likely due to several reasons. As a bonus, strength training is relatively safe for kids and poses little injury risk itself.

Athletic injuries occur when the force placed on the body exceeds the force our bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments can withstand. In sports, these forces are often uncontrollable…especially with young athletes. An athlete can safely and effectively move around the field or court, but that still doesn’t stop another player from accidentally crashing into the athlete or misplacing a foot under an athlete as he or she is landing from a jump. Of course, collision isn’t always necessary. For example, even just running can lead to a strained hamstring or front thigh muscle.

Strength training prepares the athletic body to sustain many of these forces. Strength training increases bone strength as well as connective tissue strength, which reduces the risk of bone fractures or tears in tendons or ligaments. Strength training increases muscle size and strength. As an athlete becomes stronger, his or her muscles support more force, which helps during common movements such as jumping and running. In fact, long distance runners are known to adopt strength training to reduce lower body injuries.

The Journal of Sports Medicine review also mentioned strength training as a safe option for young athletes. According to one study, strength training with 13-16-year old boys led to just 3.5 injuries for every 10,000 hours of participation. Another study said strength training was responsible for less than one percent of high school sports injuries each year. From the results of seven studies, the researchers stated, “injury occurrence (with resistance training) in children and adolescents was either very low or nil.”

Strength training physically develops muscles, bones, and connective tissues. As a result of strength training, these various tissues are more able to withstand the various forces on the body that are experienced with athletics. As a bonus, strength training is comparatively very safe. Injury risk is extremely low in general and when compared to other sports. At this point, I imagine the only question parents have about strength training with their youngsters is, “What are we waiting for?!”

By Matt Hedman, President of The Perfect Workout

Faigenbaum, A. D., & Myer, G. D. (2010). Resistance training among young athletes: safety, efficacy and injury prevention effects. British journal of sports medicine, 44(1), 56-63.

Marti’s advice to others with a similar distaste for exercise in general who are considering slow-motion strength training? “Take the time to do it. What’s 40 minutes a week out of your whole life? It’s worth every penny.”

“I always hated working out. I still hate it, but I go.” Marti Beck isn’t joking. She really doesn’t like exercising, and thought The Perfect Workout was another gimmick when she discovered it. Results from two 20-minute workouts a week?

It sounded unbelievable. She also wasn’t sure about the idea of having a personal trainer. “I didn’t want people telling me what to do.” Putting her skepticism aside, she decided to check it out since she wasn’t getting results working out on her own. Unlike the aerobics and circuit training in her younger days, this time Marti had help. Her personal trainer, Cindy, understood her needs and tailored a plan that worked for her.

The inches came off before the weight, as Marti admits it took a while to get rid of her bad eating habits. After she left her job as a legal secretary, she realized she had been eating out of stress. Once she started eating better, the pounds started coming off, too.

Two years after starting at The Perfect Workout, Marti has lost over 20 pounds and gone down three dress sizes. She’s gotten stronger all over, and more than anything, she’s excited about the fact that she now has biceps! Science and research prove the physical benefits of slow-motion strength training.

Working out this way loads the muscles more effectively, producing improved muscle tone, a leaner shape, increased metabolism, stronger bones, and greater strength. Marti’s physical transformation is still underway, but there’s a much deeper, emotional component. “I haven’t had my picture taken in over 30 years. That’s the reason I’m doing this. Pretty soon I’m going to have a family portrait done.”

Marti credits the trainers at Laguna Niguel with helping her on her journey. “The studio is great. It’s small and personal. I love Cindy’s patient and compassionate style. The whole staff is terrific! They’re all fabulous.” Marti, for her part, has been a dedicated client. Determined from the start, she’s never missed a workout. Of course, that’s a lot easier since she doesn’t have to spend an hour or two at every session like she did at her old gym. It’s all added up to a whole new outlook on life. Her husband of 42 years thinks it’s great, and at 64, Marti says, “I feel like I’m in my 40s!”

Taylor Fleming couldn’t be happier training clients and working with great colleagues. “The best thing about The Perfect Workout is that it’s like a family. I feel that this is my calling.”

On the surface, Taylor Fleming looks like you’d expect a personal trainer to look. She’s been in shape her whole life, and you can see the toned results of her recent slow-motion strength training workouts. Yet when you hear the passion in her voice as she starts talking about things like the solitude of fitness and mindful eating, you get the feeling that she’s in exactly the right place.

Taylor was intrigued by the scientific research that backed up slow-motion strength training. As a runner, she had some knee problems and was actually over-working her body. Since changing to slow-motion, Taylor has increased her muscle mass and decreased her body fat by three percent. Even more impressive, she can now leg press the entire stack of 487 pounds for two minutes and her right knee pain is gone. “The methodology works,” she says.

Always striving to learn more, Taylor is taking classes through Integrative Nutrition, one of her passions. A few years back she overcame an eating disorder and now looks at food as fuel. When her clients ask her about nutrition, she advises them to avoid mindless eating and suggests some general rules that she follows: Drink a gallon of water a day. Eat five small meals a day, two of which are snacks. Stick to a high-protein, complex (not low) carbohydrate plan. “It’s that simple. It’s a lifestyle, not a diet,” Taylor says. Her advice on working out is similar. “Make small changes over time. Consistency is the key.”

Taylor lights up when she talks about her clients, including a 62-year old who came in quite fit from another popular workout, but with a lot of pain in her joints. Working together, they started small and worked up. She’s now leg pressing 400 pounds, almost four times her 102-pound body weight. Another client in her early 70s had a desk job and never worked out, causing her muscles to atrophy. She’s very committed to increasing her muscle mass, and never misses a workout, and now bicep curls 40 pounds and lat pulls 90 pounds. Seeing her clients’ commitment to the program gives Taylor the most satisfaction. “That progress over time, seeing how devoted they are inspires me. That’s why I’m in this industry.”

Since joining The Perfect Workout 10 months ago, Esther is now stronger all over, down a dress size, and feeling younger and more attractive than she has in years.

“Compared to other women my age (and there aren’t a lot of them), I’m prancing around,” says Esther Gendel. In January she went on a strenuous safari. She zips around to the theater and other cultural activities. She still works, buying houses and getting them fixed up for her grandkids. “It keeps me active. I hang around with people in their late 60s, and I’m equal to them.” No rocking chairs, canes, or lazing around for this soon-to-be 92-year old. Not at all. Esther’s prescription for youthful exuberance carries no ill side effects: slow-motion strength training. Since joining The Perfect Workout 10 months ago, Esther is now stronger all over, down a dress size, and feeling younger and more attractive than she has in years. “At first, my arms were sticks,” she says. I couldn’t even push for one rep. Now I can do seven or eight. I’m amazed at myself.”

Working out at her age is remarkable, especially considering the fact that she went through a difficult time a few years ago. Her husband got Alzheimer’s and later passed away. Then she found out her knees had deteriorated, and her doctor told her she needed artificial ones. She said, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life? If I’m going to keep living, I don’t want to be a sickly person.”

When her husband was alive, he and Esther had a trainer, but she hated every minute of it. “I despised working out because it was too much time.” The Perfect Workout is not only quicker and more effective, it’s a lot more enjoyable. She attributes that to her trainer at the West Los Angeles studio. “I like to have fun, and Raymond doesn’t stick to a serious regimen. We sing through all the exercises, and I jog from machine to machine. He’s in tune with me. While he’s counting, I’m singing. I joke with him that my tombstone is going to say, ‘One, two, three…!’ It’s social for me as well as physical.”

After a few months of working out with Raymond, Esther’s friends asked her what she was doing. She was noticeably stronger, more toned, and could climb out of the car without assistance. Recently she got into a bathing suit and realized that she had a nice figure again. Good Russian genes may be part of it (her parents lived to be 90), and not missing any of her sessions all year helped, too.

A retired teacher with a Masters Degree in Earth Science, Esther has traveled the world over, and has no plans to slow down in the near future. When she’s not gallivanting around, she enjoys spending time with her nine grandkids and two great-grandkids, all in California. They say she does more than they do, and tell her she’s the funniest person they know. It’s a great combination – a regular physical routine along with a vibrant approach to squeezing the most out of life. Here’s to continued transformation, Esther, and many more years ahead.