Monthly Archives: April 2010

May is National Arthritis Awareness Month: Get Moving With Koko’s Arthritis HealthTrack

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arhtritisDid you know arthritis is the number one cause of disability in the United States? Number one. It painfully effects the lives of nearly 46 million adults and 300,000 children nationwide.

The best defense? Exercise! The Arthritis Foundation proclaims May National Arthritis Awareness Month and they’re sending the message that moving is the best medicine.

Strength training is an especially effective type of exercise for combating painful arthritis symptoms. Research by the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University showed that for older adults with osteoarthritis of the knee, strength training:

  • Decreased arthritis pain by 43%
  • Increased muscle strength
  • Improved physical function by 44%
  • Improved physical performance, quality of life and self-efficacy

Similar results have been seen in studies of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.

Why does strength training work so well against arthritis? Think of your muscles as shock absorbers for your joints. The stronger they are, the better they will cushion and support. Also, building muscle tissue fires up the body’s metabolism so it burns more calories and drops excess weight. Losing just 10 pounds removes 30 to 50 pounds of stress from your joints!

Sometimes, the first steps in starting a new strength training routine are the hardest, and that’s truer still if you battle joint pain every day. We want to help. First, talk to your doctor about whether strength training is appropriate for you. Second, visit your Koko FitClub and sign up for the new Arthritis HealthTrack. This year-long HealthTrack takes full advantage of Smartraining technology. There is no guess work, just a customized, progressive strength training program designed to improve your physical function and reduce the painful symptoms of arthritis. The program is safe, effective and optimized, in real-time, based on your body.

Once you are armed with the confidence that every Arthritis HealthTrack workout is the best it can be for your body, every time, with no guesswork required by you, you’ll find that starting a new strength routine to battle your arthritis isn’t hard at all.

Fight on!
Michael Wood, CSCS
Chief Fitness Officer

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Fitness Myths Busted: “Is Cardio really better at burning calories than Strength Training??”

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cardio burn

Not necessarily! Cardiovascular fitness is critical to your health and longevity, which is why we embrace Koko Cardio. (We recently posted a blog entry on just that subject.) But, a workout regimen that consists of only cardiovascular exercise is lopsided at best. 

Circuit training strength regimens have the ability to burn nearly as many calories per workout, build strength and improve aerobic fitness by 7 to 15%. The calorie burning and aerobic improvements from this type of strength workout make it a fair trade-off for a straight cardio workout. However, over the long haul, the calorie burn from circuit strength training easily trumps cardio alone. Here’s why…

 In circuit strength training you move through a “circuit” of  resistance exercises, alternating muscle groups with little rest between, so your heart rate stays elevated. Sound familiar?

That’s because a Koko Smartraining workout IS circuit training! Besides providing a solid cardiovascular workout, Koko Smartraining develops lean muscle tissue. Lean muscle is a calorie burning machine. When you have a higher percentage of lean muscle in your body, your metabolic rate is higher. So, you burn more calories all the time, not just during exercise.

 Speaking of calories burned during exercise, do you know that the Koko Smartrainer is the only strength equipment with the ability to track them? This comes in handy when you want to know how many you’ve expended each workout, but it can be deceptive for the reasons stated above. You may burn more calories during a straight cardio work out, but the 50 to 100 calorie difference will easily be bridged, then surpassed, as your metabolic rate increases through consistent Koko Smartraining.

So, next time you find yourself worried that you aren’t getting enough calorie burn from a Koko Smartraining strength session, remember that the most beneficial, long term calorie burn can’t be captured as a data point in the computer, but it makes all the difference in your health and appearance.

Koko makes it easy, so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Just 3 Koko Smartraining strength sessions  per week, plus Koko Cardio 15-minute sessions on your “off days” (or after your strength workout!) is all you need for a balanced, calorie burning, training plan.

Happy Earth Day!

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Earth Day Koko Man

Happy Earth Day 2010!

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and everyone is taking a look at what they do from a greener perspective. Why not Koko FitClub? It’s really not that hard to find our green side, even with all that Koko orange around.

By giving members the best workout for their bodies, every time, we are sending more and more fit, healthy people into the world everyday. Folks who are energetic enough to:

  • Walk to work or the store or the bus stop
  • Skip the carpool and bike to school with their kids instead
  • Turn off the TV and  take a hike with the dog on the weekend
  • Use people power and take the stairs

Koko FitClub is also an inherently “greener” health club model:

  • There aren’t rows and rows of cardio equipment, and Smartrainers are essentially people-powered, save for the low wattage LED lights on the weight stack and the small LED screen.
  • We eschew the banks of televisions commonplace in so many other health clubs. It allows you to focus on your workout, but it also saves a ton of energy.
  • The warm and inviting Koko FitClub spaces are purposely limited in their square footage. Gyms housed in massive, industrial spaces with high ceilings have equally massive energy requirements for heating, cooling and lighting.
  • We encourage our members to hydrate with refillable, eco-friendly water bottles instead of buying bottled water.

So this Earth Day we hope that you find your greener side, too. Making a habit of green living isn’t any different than making a habit of fitness. It’s not about taking on a radical way of living that you can’t sustain, it’s the cumulative effect of choosing the little things, like taking the stairs, that really add up.

Be well and be green!

Mary Obana
President and Co-Founder
Koko FitClub

One Billion Pounds Lifted!

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i billionKoko Nation hit a collective Smartraining milestone recently: 1,000,000,000 pounds lifted! (Yes, BILLION!) WOW! It’s a hugely impressive feat, but somewhat challenging to grasp in it’s scale. I think you’ll better appreciate just how much weight that is if I give it some perspective.
 
Lifting one billion pounds is the equivalent of lifting:  
 
- Our Chief Fitness Officer, Michael Wood, approximately 5,000,000 reps 
- A Smartrainer, 1,111,111 reps
- The Space Shuttle, 223 reps
- A chock-full 18-wheeler, 12,500 reps
- A Boeing 737-700 series passenger plane, 11,891 reps
- A Mini Cooper, 384,615 reps
- A Saturn-V rocket, 149 reps
- An adult male African elephant, 90,909 reps
- An average size cruise ship, 5 reps
- A fully grown blue whale, 3,334 reps
- The Washington Monument, 6 reps
- A NYC subway car, 111,737 reps
- The Seattle Space Needle, 52 reps
 
OK, I’m exhausted. Your turn! What else can we lift to a billion pounds?
 
Only Koko FitClub tracks this kind of data as part of our member progress reporting, and I am so proud of every single individual who contributed to this total. (That’s YOU getting strong and healthy.) And, what gets me even more fired up is that we are just getting started. Seriously… Koko Nation’s pounds lifted is the perfect antidote to those “Billions and Billions Served,” don’t you think?
 
Look out we’re coming!
 
Mary Obana
President & Co-Founder

Third Time’s a Charm: The Power of Three Days a Week

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KokoCalI wish I could convince all of our members to spend thirty minutes, three times a week on Koko Smartraining. Don’t get me wrong, any exercise is better than no exercise. Koko is a guilt free zone, and I applaud every effort you make to fit in a workout when you can. But, I’d really love for you to experience what happens to your body on the three day a week Smartraining schedule.
 
Allow me to explain. Here’s a bit of “empirical data” to show you what can happen in three, 30-minute sessions with a Koko Smartrainer each week:
 
Back in Koko’s early days, we were collecting data on the Smartrainer’s effectiveness, and seeing decent strength increases from twice a week use. Was the third session really that important? The guideline is based on exercise science that says unequivocally, “yes.” But, the Smartrainer is different and, well, smarter. So, co-founder, Mary Obana and I decided to play guinea pigs for the sake of Koko. We created a little friendly competition to see who would have the greatest strength gain. For 10 weeks, I worked out on the Smartrainer twice a week for thirty minutes and Mary worked out three times a week for thirty minutes. (Those keeping score at home please note: I took one for the team here!) The outcome wasn’t a shock: Mary, of course, was the victor. What stunned us were the results. I had a heroic strength gain by exercise science standards-29%. (And, this is on a fit guy who knows his way around a gym!) The kicker was that Mary beat me by an additional 20%! That’s huge!
 
If empirical data doesn’t do it for you, remember that “strength gain” equals a lean, fit body with plenty of metabolism boosting muscle. It means you feeling good about how you look in your clothes or being able to keep up with your kids or grandkids. (Your Q score may even show you that you’re as strong as your kids or grandkids!) So, no guilt, my friends. Just a wish for you to be the strongest, healthiest you possible.

Michael Wood, CSCS
Chief Fitness Officer
Koko FitClub