Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ - Trick9 fitness
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Frequently asked questions about Trick9 Fitness. For general FAQ about fitness, health, and exercise, scroll further down or click HERE.
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What Exactly Is Personal Training?
I've got a whole page about this. Click here.
What safety measures are you taking regarding covid-19?
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I assure you, at Trick9 Fitness, we take this pandemic seriously.
I am seeing clients one on one, with 30 minutes between sessions for surface sanitization and to allow the two high-quality HEPA air purifiers to do their thing. 30 minutes is almost double the time it takes for these to filter all the cubic footage of air in the studio. When mask mandates were in place, we wore masks in the studio as well, and when there is the slightest doubt, we still mask up.
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Currently, masks in the studio are optional for clients. Some do, some don't. I have invested in a high-quality elastomeric mask (Flo Mask). Since I train one-on-one and there is no shared studio time between unmasked clients, I figure as long as I wear my mask, the chain of potential infection is broken.
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So far everyone I've worked with has been more than happy to work within these conditions, and extremely thoughtful and courteous when they have doubts ("it's probably my allergies but I'm going to wear a mask just in case")
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All of these make Trick9 Fitness one of the safest training environments available when it comes to COVID-19.
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Do you accept health insurance?​
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The closest we can get is using an HFA or HSA. I am not able to take health insurance directly. I don't know of any personal trainers that are able to. The closest we have been able to get was when someone got their training receipt reimbursed through their health flex account.
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what are your hours?​
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Trick9 Fitness is open by appointment only. I live near the studio, and my schedule is flexible. If you're interested in training, we discuss what works and set up a schedule.
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FAQ - general Fitness: health and exercise
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Here are some frequently asked questions about fitness:
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what is the best exercise to lose belly fat?​
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There is a whole lot going on with this question and 90% of people who read this answer are going to keep looking for something else to tell them what they want to hear, because most people who are at the stage of asking this question are usually not also at the stage of being ready to hear the answer.
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First of all, anything out there claiming to "burn belly fat" is lying to you. I know we see it all the time and the impression is that it must be true, but it is j u s t n o t t r u e.
How can this be??
The market is flooded with products and programs and articles all claiming to have found the solution. It's everywhere.
This overwhelming presence of the concept of losing belly fat makes us all believe that it must be possible.
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It's not!
They can't all be wrong or lying, can they?
They can! HOWEVER, there is usually a loophole they are exploiting to technically not be lying. The truth is, it's possible to lose fat. This means it's also possible to lose belly fat. But practically speaking, there's nothing you can do to specifically lose belly fat more than any other body fat.
The sources that say it's possible are all taking advantage of human nature and a phenomenon called the "illusory truth effect" which basically means that if people hear a lie repeated enough, they'll start to believe it. They're also taking advantage of our desire for a quick fix by telling us a partial truth that aligns with what we want the hear.
Spot reduction of fat is a myth.
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This is a well-known fitness myth among those who know anything about fitness, but that doesn't seem to make any difference in the number of trainers, fitness programs, pills, lotions, body wraps, etc. who are all perfectly willing to take your money if you haven't gotten the memo yet.
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But it's true:
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You can't choose where to lose fat.
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When your body needs energy, it taps into your energy reserves. In the right conditions, this means your fat energy reserves. Your body does not consider where the energy is being used when it decides where to pull the energy from. Maybe part of the problem is the words we use? Your body doesn't "burn" fat. If you think fat is burned maybe you think heating up your belly will work. Fat isn't actually burned. Fat is metabolized. Doing crunches does not metabolize belly fat. Doing crunches makes your abs stronger. Putting a special lotion on your belly doesn't metabolize belly fat. Wrapping your midsection in rubber doesn't metabolize belly fat. Nothing you do to or put into your body can make your body choose to metabolize belly fat more than any other fat on your body.
Most people lose fat proportionally all over their body, and usually more from the extremities inward. Meaning that a person's wrists and ankles usually look thinner sooner than their belly and love handles. This is why having "six-pack abs" is like the holy grail of fitness goals. It's extremely difficult, and for most people extremely unpleasant, to live the kind of life required to reach the point of having low enough body fat to have visible abs. I don't recommend it!
That being said, losing some extra fat is a reasonable enough goal for the average person who's not trying to reach fitness model standards.
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Fat loss is achieved by maintaining a caloric deficit over time. Caloric deficit means you are utilizing more calories than you are eating. Just like in finance, if you spend more than you make, you're losing money; if you use more calories than you eat, you lose weight. Sounds simple, right? Haha.
Your body does not want to lose weight. It wants to stay the same. It considers losing weight a threat. If you exercise more, your body will tell you to eat more. It would be a mistake to look at only the exercise side of this equation.
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In fact, exercise is not even necessary to lose weight. To build muscle, yes, but for fat loss, simply eating fewer calories could do the trick. It's actually easier for most people to avoid eating calories in the first place than it is to burn them off later. That being said, the method that is most healthy and enjoyable, and has the highest chance for long-term success, is to pair conscious nutritional choices, aka, a "diet," with regular exercise.
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Which leads us to the other part of this question, the "best exercise."
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Since choosing to metabolize belly fat is not possible, the best exercise for metabolizing belly fat is simply the best exercise for metabolizing fat. The best exercise for metabolizing fat would be the exercise that uses the most calories.
However, the exercise that metabolizes the most calories is not necessarily the best exercise for actually losing fat.
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Let me put it this way: the exercise that uses the most calories per minute is not usually the exercise that uses the most calories per day/week/month/year.
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Do you know what a burpee is? If not, you can look it up, or you can just trust me when I say: it's an exercise, and it's awful. They have nothing to do with burps, they're named after a guy whose name was Royal H. Burpee and whose friends called "Goog". This is interesting but not the point. If I told you that burpees used the most calories per minute of any exercise - I don't know if they actually do - they probably don't, this is just an example, but if they did - knowing this does you no good whatsoever!
Burpees are terrible! If you don't seriously injure yourself immediately upon trying them, chances are you can only do a few of them before you have to stop or die. What good would it do if burpees used 100 times as many calories per minute as any other exercise (they don't!) if you can't even do ten seconds of them? What good does an exercise do if you hate it so much you find every excuse possible to skip it until months later you give up even trying to pretend you're going to do it?
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The best exercise for losing fat and keeping it off is whatever exercise you will keep doing - over weeks, months, even years. Develop a habit, a hobby, something active that keeps you engaged. Hiking, biking, kayaking, ping-pong, skipping stones, ballroom dancing, Wii Sports, rollerblading, disc golfing, shuffleboard, whatever it is that has you moving around and enjoying it, or at least not hating it enough that you'll skip it given the slightest excuse. Something that you find excuses to go do more often than you find excuses not to do. You don't even have to stick with the same activity, as long as you keep doing stuff that you enjoy and/or don't hate!
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To make it easy on those of you who just NEED AN ANSWER:
Walking is the absolute best, most underrated exercise for health and long-term fat loss (including belly fat).
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In addition to other activities, I recommend a regular program of resistance training. For a few reasons:
1. it is a more structured way to ensure that your body is getting a balanced workout.
2. You are probably trying to lose fat to look better, and resistance training helps shape the body in wonderful ways.
3. Resistance training builds muscle, and muscle requires more calories to maintain, thereby diverting energy from fat reserves.
4. Resistance training has numerous benefits that extend into performance enhancement in all other activities in your life.
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If you're interested in starting a resistance training program, I can help!
