I want abs, but my trainer never focuses on them. Why ?

If you’re looking for a workout that packs a punch—in every sense of the word—boxing might just be your new best friend. Beyond the gloves and footwork, boxing offers incredible benefits for your cardiovascular system. This week, let’s dive into how stepping into the ring or hitting the heavy bag can transform your heart health, boost endurance, and leave you feeling stronger inside and out. More Than Just a Fight: Boxing and Cardiovascular Fitness We often think of boxing as a high-energy, intense sport—but it’s also one of the most effective cardiovascular workouts around. The quick bursts of movement, continuous footwork, punching combinations, and defensive maneuvers keep your heart rate elevated throughout the session. This kind of sustained cardiovascular effort is exactly what helps improve heart health, stamina, and overall aerobic fitness. One of the standout benefits? Boxing trains both your anaerobic and aerobic systems. That means your heart learns to recover faster and work more efficiently, whether you’re throwing a flurry of punches or catching your breath between rounds. Over time, this translates into lower resting heart rates, improved blood circulation, and reduced risk of heart disease. The Science Behind the Sweat Studies show that engaging in regular aerobic exercise—like boxing—improves several markers of cardiovascular health. For example, it helps to: Lower blood pressure: The consistent movement and elevated heart rates improve the elasticity of your blood vessels. Increase HDL (good) cholesterol: Boxing encourages your body to reduce harmful cholesterol and boost the protective kind. Boost heart muscle strength: Regular sessions strengthen your heart itself, improving its efficiency with every beat. Plus, the interval nature of boxing—alternating between fast bursts of punching and moments of active recovery—mimics high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which has been praised for its effectiveness in heart health enhancement. Why Boxing Feels Better Than a Treadmill Let’s be honest: clocking miles on a treadmill can get dull fast. Boxing, on the other hand, is engaging, fast-paced, and mentally stimulating. You’re not just moving; you’re strategizing, coordinating, and reacting. This mental engagement often helps people stick with their workouts longer and with more enthusiasm. Another bonus is the full-body involvement. You’re not only elevating your heart rate but also strengthening your core, enhancing your balance, and building muscular endurance. That means better posture, improved coordination, and a leaner physique alongside your boosted cardiovascular fitness. Getting Started: Tips for Boxing Beginners If the idea of jumping straight into the ring feels intimidating, don’t worry. Many gyms offer beginner classes focused on technique and cardio conditioning. Here are a few pointers to make the most of your boxing cardio journey: Start slow: Focus on basics like stance, punches, and footwork. Use proper gear: Gloves and hand wraps protect your hands and wrists. Incorporate rest: Listen to your body and include recovery in your training plan. Mix it up: Combine bag work, shadowboxing, and jump rope for a balanced session. Whether you want to box competitively or simply enjoy a dynamic cardio routine, the benefits for your cardiovascular health are undeniable. Wrapping Up So, next time you lace up those gloves or slide on your wraps, remember you’re doing your heart a real favor. Boxing isn’t just about power and technique—it’s an incredible way to keep your cardiovascular system strong, agile, and ready for whatever life throws your way. Ready to give it a shot? Join us this week for a beginner-friendly boxing class designed to get your heart pumping and your confidence growing. Stay tuned for next week’s post, where we’ll explore nutrition tips to fuel your workouts and recovery. Until then, keep punching and keep your heart happy!

Welcome back to the QF Fitness Hub! Whether you’re just lacing up your sneakers for the first time or you’ve been hitting the weights for years, there’s one question that often pops up: “Do I really need a personal trainer?” It’s a great question and definitely worth exploring. This week, we’re diving into why having a personal trainer isn’t just a luxury—it can be a game changer for your fitness journey. At first glance, gyms seem full of machines, free weights, and perhaps a dozen classes to try. Sure, you can navigate all of this on your own, but having a personal guide can make the path a lot smoother, more enjoyable, and frankly, more effective. More Than Just Motivation One of the biggest advantages of working with a personal trainer is accountability. We’ve all been there—great intentions to work out consistently, but life gets busy, motivation dips, and suddenly your gym shoes are collecting dust. A personal trainer keeps you on track. They’re not just there to cheer you on but to design a plan tailored specifically to your goals, lifestyle, and abilities. That means every session has a purpose, which can transform your workouts from aimless to intentional. Expert Guidance Tailored For You It’s a bit like having a GPS built just for your fitness. Personal trainers understand the science of exercise and how the body moves. That knowledge translates into programs that play to your strengths while gently shoring up weaknesses—whether that’s improving your posture, recovering from injury, or boosting your endurance. They make sure you perform exercises correctly, reducing the risk of injury and making every rep count. Breaking Through Plateaus If you’ve been working out for a while but feel stuck—your progress has slowed, and motivation is waning—a personal trainer can be just the reset you need. Trainers offer new challenges, fresh perspectives, and expert tweaks to your program so your body keeps adapting and growing stronger. Sometimes, all it takes is an outside eye to spot what you might be missing. Learning Lifelong Habits Fitness isn’t just about short bursts of effort; it’s about building habits that last a lifetime. Personal trainers don’t just push you during your sessions; they educate you on nutrition, recovery, and mindset—all crucial pieces of the puzzle. This kind of holistic support equips you with knowledge to make better choices even when you’re not at the gym. So, Is a Personal Trainer Worth It? For many, absolutely. Think of a personal trainer as an investment in yourself—helping you save time, avoid injury, and get better results with less guesswork. Plus, the encouragement and camaraderie can keep things lighthearted and fun. Fitness doesn’t have to be a struggle, and with the right coach by your side, you might just surprise yourself. Next time you’re at the gym, remember: it’s not about lifting the heaviest weights or sprinting the fastest. It’s about finding the right support to become the healthiest, happiest version of you. And sometimes, that starts with a little expert guidance. Thanks for reading, and if you’re curious about personal training options or want to meet one of our trainers, feel free to reach out by filling out our PT consult form or call us. Until then, keep moving and take care!

The most common goal I hear as a trainer, regardless if its from men or women, young or old, is to have “abs”. It comes in all sorts of names : abs, six pack, toned stomach, tighten up the mid section, a better core, etc. I must say I can’t blame them. After all, the mid section is the center piece of a physique. The visual anchor that holds everything else together. So once we’ve established that “ visual abdominals” are a goal, its time to go to work.   But what does that “work”, actually look like? Many of times at the end of their sessions, clients will voice their concerns that we didn’t do any “ab exercises”, or we only did planks. At first I was sort of baffled by these prompts, but soon realized that science of actually having a visible six pack is not a simple explanation. So, lets attempt to tackle the main factors that will have your abs showing, and what popular myths wont actually help you achieve this goal. The first point I try to get across is, everyone has abs already, the limiting factor is how much fat mass you have sitting on top of them. Inorder to actually see your abs, your going to need to have a low percentage of body fat. Individuals can range on exactly what that percentage is, but the fact remains, lowering your overall body fat percentage is the number one factor on whether or not someone can see your abs. Doing countless ab exercises wont necessarily hurt you, but it isn’t a major catalyst for burning body fat. It may improve the conditioning of your core and help performance for certain exercises, but in terms of increasing your metabolism, it’s low on the totem pole. That’s a huge factor as to why your trainer isn’t going to have you doing twenty minutes or ab exercises during your workout.   So if doing countless leg raises and sit ups isn’t going to help, what exercises will? This is typically where my clients have a difficult time in believing what I say. We know that lowering our body fat percentage is the key to abs, so how can we lower or body fat percentage with exercise? Well most people who work with me only exercise 1-3 times a week. Which isn’t great, but is much better than anyone sitting on the couch. With such limited time in the gym, working the entire body from top to bottom with high intensity exercises is the best way to go. This means working shoulders, chest, back, triceps, biceps, core, glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. Basically every single body part. However, not all body parts are equal. Legs have much larger, stronger muscles that are capable of lifting much more weight than a bicep for example. Placing a larger emphasis on these big muscle groups such as shoulders, chest, back, and legs, will cause a much more prominent increase in your basal metabolic rate. Essentially, causing you to burn more calories throughout your day regardless of what you’re doing. Does that mean you shouldn’t spend any time actually focusing on your abs in the gym? That’s a usual question I hear at his point in the conversation. The in depth answer is this. We have to ask what is the actual function of the core, yes the core, not abs. People tend to forget that there is a lower back section of your core that works in unison with your abs. The core is there to stabilize. That’s why planks are the most effective exercise for core. But what if we could make your core have to stabilize throughout your workout? That would be the best of all worlds. Working large muscle groups, full body exercises, increasing your metabolism, lowering body fat, and having your core work to stabilize at all times. Some exercises that do this could be : walking Dumbbell lunges, Barbell Squats, Sprints of any kind (running / bike / swim), push ups with a dumbbell row etc. So this is why it may seem like your trainer hasn’t done any “ab” exercises, but in reality they have executed an abundance of core exercises that has engaged all the muscles in that region.   Theres an elephant in the room, and its name is nutrition. Since the focus of this article is about exercises that are done in the gym, were not going to touch on that subject any more then simply stating it plays a massive role in having visible abs, maybe even more so then exercise. However when complimented together, it’s the best strategy for achieving that goal. At the end of the day, getting abs isn’t about endless crunches, it’s about working smarter. Training your full body, challenging those big muscle groups, and building a strong, stable core will take you much further than a hundred sit ups ever could. Pair that with smart nutrition choices, and you’ll set yourself up not just for abs, but for strength, health, and confidence. So next time your trainer skips the “ab exercises”, trust the process they’re guiding you toward results that actually work.

I guess its time to get controversial right off the bat. I want to prefix this entire blog by stating that if your goal is specifically based on running performance, this argument is not touching on that issue. What it will be going over, is how the average person stepping foot in the gym trying to lose weight should avoid the treadmill at all costs. As a trainer who has worked in a gym for over 10+years, I can confidently say that I have never seen a piece of equipment that’s so popular, but yet do so little and continue to stand the test of time. I had to ask myself, why is the treadmill so popular? Then after a very shot time of working in a gym I began to notice a pattern. I’ll sum it up by painting you a picture. A person who hasn’t worked out in years / has never worked out, sums up the courage and determination to get a gym membership and begins their very first workout. They walk in and are unsure of what exercises to do / how the machines work / see a lot of people in excellent shape doing intimidating exercises in the free weight area. They then see a treadmill available. Its extremely simple, just press the green go button and all of a sudden they are working out. So you may ask, what’s wrong with that ? One of the many reasons I have such issues with treadmills as a weight loss exercise is that people spend a huge amount of time on it, while isolating their entire upper half. If I ever was training a client who only workouts 1-3 times a week, wants better body composition and weight loss, and I ignored all upper body work for an entire workout, I would be absolutely setting that client up for failure. Weight loss comes from an increased metabolism, and the best overall way to boost your metabolism is increasing lean muscle mass from head to toe. To me, coming in and doing 1-3 “fat loss workouts” on a treadmill per week is no different than the 16 year old boy who only works chest and biceps, or the person who works abs five days a week but eats 4,000 calories per day. You can’t expect full body results by continually working the same area You may be asking, so what’s wrong with someone coming and just doing the treadmill if they don’t know what else to do ? I’ll always be the first person to say any exercise is better than none (unless it results in injury), but after seeing this for years, here’s what usually happens. Remember that person who kept pressing the green go button every time they came in? They have done the hard part of making time and coming in to the gym, but its been 2 months now and they simply aren’t seeing any results. They get very discouraged and eventually give up on the gym for the near future. I can confidently say that the number one reason someone would be most likely to continue going to the gymis if they see results. Which brings me to another reason why I think the treadmill shouldn’t be included in mostworkouts. For the amount of time people spend on it, they could be doing a high intensity interval training workout that will yield way better results, and can be done in a much shorter amount of time. I have tested this theory many times, and for a simple 15 minute workout operating at high intensity and little break times, it dramatically increased my clients performance and body composition across the board, as compared to gym goers who stuck to their 25-35 minute treadmill sessions. I would like to raise the point that a high intensity workout can be done on the treadmill, but your average gym goerisn’t doing this. Most of them are running at a moderate pace for a long period of time. Don’t get mislead either about the difference between high intensity vs. difficult exercises. Usually the high intensity exercises are simple to perform and most people can do them. Squats, sprints, presses and rows etc. One mechanic I have always disliked about the treadmill is how it eliminates one of the actions performed to run. Have you ever noticed its easier to get a better time on the treadmill than if you were to actually run outside? I always take my clients for runs outside for our warm ups instead of putting them on treadmills, and they tend to always get more tired doing so. Outside, in order to run you musta) push off the floor, and b) lift your leg forward for your next step. On a treadmill however, that push isn’t needed, you are simply lifting your legs while the floor moves underneath you. It inherently eliminates one of the two motions needed to actually run. I can only justify using the treadmill under a very specific set of circumstances that ill mention rapidly in order to cut down time -an alternate to running outside when weather conditions pose a threat (extreme heat / cold)

This question is not limited to people starting off a new fitness journey, but even for the most advanced lifters out there. The truth is that there isn’t a simple answer because based on what your fitness goals are, where you’re at in a program, and how you’re feeling on that day, all play vital roles. Furthermore, depending on who’s answering that question, will give you a massive range of answers. I’m willing to be my life savings someone on the carnivore diet will give you a vastly different response to someone who is a vegan. So how we do we break this down? Being a personal trainer for over a decade, I’ve seen almost every body type and fitness level come through the doors. So ill start off by saying for the purpose of keeping this blog short, ill only be  giving an answer to the vast majority of people who are asking this question – the average person who is aiming to drop 10-30lbs, and exercises 1-3 days a week. If you fall into this bracket, chances are your life doesn’t revolve around the gym. Its something you try to fit in during your day to day life and some weeks are better than others. This is going to put you in a position very different position from someone who bails on plans because they have to fit their workout in and brings meal prep containers to backyard barbeques. When one of my clients in this situation asks me what to eat before they come in, I try to keep it very simple for them. Now most of the time my advice is 6oz. of berries (whichever ones are on sale), any type of nut bars (that contain actual nuts, not glorified candy bars), handheld fruits such as apples/ pears/ oranges e.t.c. A good general window is to eat 1.5 hours – 45 mins before a workout if your following the guidelines I set out.  These all fit the criteria listed above, which as you can see are based on not just physical needs, but lifestyle accommodations as well.  Having a large meal regardless of how healthy it is isn’t the best option before a workout. Especially if you consume large amounts of protein, which takes the longest to digest out of all macronutrients (sometimes up to 8 hours). I can’t count how many times I’ve had a client throw up because they simply have food still digesting in their stomach. Your body doesn’t know your simply “just working out”. Once your fatigued from intense exercise, your body will direct all available energy (glucose) away from your digestive tract to supply your working muscles. With no energy left in your digestive system, your body has no choice but to evacuate its stomach contents. So to sum all that up simply, eat something that will be fully digested before your workout.  Getting the right blend between taking in some energy to fuel you for a workout vs. overdoing it on the carbs can be tricky at times. The main energy source most people are going to use for a workout is glucose/glycogen. I’ve had clients consume protein shakes before a workout and excluding the digestive issues I listed above, it isn’t actually providing you with carbs. On the flip side however, I don’t advise you chug a can of coke and praise the fact you just took in 32g of sugar to help boost your workout. There has to be a balance of carbs coming in, along with vital macronutrients as well. Micronutrients are found in all fruits and nuts and really help everything in your body run like a finely tuned machine. Carbs may take all the headlines, but micronutrients are just as important. Now on to the lifestyle aspect of this. Being a trainer for a long time I’ve made some observations that shed light on to why we eat the way we do. Lifestyle factors contribute to the majority of our eating habits, not knowledge of nutrition. Although not all of us, but I would say the majority of us workout after work / school. This means that what may be the best meal pre workout, isn’t a practical option to eat while your driving to the gym from work, or hauling it around with you all day at school. That’s why having a meal that can easily fit in any bag and can be transported will prevent you from stopping in at drive throughs, and avoid stacking up dirty dishes.  With all the energy both physically and mentally that goes in to having a workout routine, being able to save time and mental stress day in day out really does help over the long run. One of the most common issues a lot of my clients face is the cooking / meal prep aspect. Making separate meals from the rest of the family, or having to shop at different groceries stores based on what’s on sale can be a pesky chore to deal with. That’s why I always advise if you can cut out any mental stress, do it. Adding an extra set of pots and pans for pre workout meals is an addition no one welcomes, and if my clients are pressed for time, that’s the first meal that gets cut out and replaced by a coffee run or a drive through. Planning hand fruits or a nut bar as your pre workout meal instead pretty much guarantees at least that part of the nutrition plan becomes a constant and you never have to worry about straying away from that aspect of the plan. The answer to this question will always be debated, and to be truthful, there are way too many variables for their to be one correct answer. As you can see, a lot of thought goes in to this beyond a generic “just have a shake”, or “workout fasted”. We didn’t even touch on caffeine or pre workout drinks, as

When it comes to fitness myths, few have caused as much concern and confusion as the idea that weight training can stunt growth, especially in young athletes and adolescents.  This misconception has circulated for decades, dissuading many from obtaining the benefits of resistance training. Today, we’ll take a look at the facts and answer the question: “Does weight training stunt growth ?”. The idea that weight training stunts growth likely originated from several misconceptions and misunderstandings about the effects of physical activity on children and adolescents. Here are some possible sources and reasons behind this myth: Debunking the Myth Modern scientific research and expert opinions largely come to the same conclusion: properly conducted weight training does not stunt growth. In fact, strength training under appropriate supervision can offer numerous benefits for adolescents: Building Stronger Bones: Despite common misconceptions, weight training, when done correctly, can strengthen bones. Resistance exercises cause bones to adapt by becoming denser and stronger, which is essential for long-term bone health.  Muscle Growth and Development: Weight training promotes muscle growth and enhances muscle strength. For young athletes, this means better performance in sports and activities. It’s important to understand that muscle growth and height are regulated by different mechanisms, and weight training does not interfere with the growth plates responsible for bone lengthening. The Importance of Proper Technique: Ensuring safe and effective weight training for young individuals depends on proper technique. Learning correct form from qualified trainers or coaches minimizes the risk of injury and maximizes the benefits of strength training. This also instills good habits early on, promoting a lifetime of safe fitness practices. Embrace Safe and Effective Fitness Practices It’s time to put the myth to rest: weight training doesn’t stunt growth. When done with proper supervision and technique, it actually offers young athletes a range of benefits, such as increased strength, better bone density, and improved overall fitness. If you’re a young athlete or a parent worried about weight training, you can be confident that with the right guidance, it can be a safe and valuable part of a fitness routine. At Quick Fitness we encourage our youth to adopt healthy habits and achieve their full potential, both on and off the field. Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do. Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.